Can we queue only by enforcement?

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It would be sad to conclude that Indonesians can only manage to wait in lines via enforcement by security officers.

This, regrettably, seems to be the case in some private buildings.

Two well-dressed women who were queuing at the Bank Central Asia counter in the GKBI building on Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta grew visibly mad recently at a man who suddenly jumped ahead of them in line.

"Wild young man indeed -- don't you have any morals?" wondered one of the women aloud as she pushed the man out of the way.

Before long, a security guard appeared and put the man in his place in line. The confrontation ended there.

The objection from the woman and the security guard's presence gave the man the lesson he needed to stand in line.

But don't expect such a quick fix when you are queuing at many public service offices.

At city police headquarters on Jl. Sudirman, for example, queuing in front of a counter seems a bit out of place.

On Wednesday, at the vehicle's document processing division (Samsat) located in a building of the headquarters's vast complex, people could be found surging towards the counters, running roughshod over each other, oblivious to the bars delineating where they were supposed to wait in line.

A policeman walking to and fro was himself oblivious to the unruly crowd before him -- and was even taken aback when The Jakarta Post tried to raise the issue.

"Mas (brother)... don't show off with your orderly attitude of queuing, don't talk too much, just get into the locket like others," he retorted.

One of the men in line, Yanto, who was forcing himself toward the front said that he had given up the idea of lining up in an disorderly fashion.

"Queuing in this place? Are you nuts? I don't want to be left behind ... After all, everybody else is jostling. I need to save some time, too," he said.

The same type of disorderliness reigned at the Bukit Duri subdistrict office in South Jakarta, where people did not even bother to process their identification cards (ID) at the counter.

Instead, dozens of people crowded the staffers' room, while incessantly jumping ahead of each other's queue.

At the desks of the staffers, dozens of Rp 20,000 and 50,000 notes were strewn all over their desks. The money was likely to serve as "lubrication oil" to speed things up albeit processing an ID card is free by law.

Akmal, a Bukit Duri resident who was processing his ID, said that he would sincerely stand up in line. However, the environment was not conducive for him to do so.

"In such a crowded and disorderly situation, who wants to get in line? I would do so if somebody started it first," he said.

Lukman, one of the office's employees, said that he was powerless to stop people from entering his office.

"The counter was useless, since everybody is trying to process their IDs from behind the counter. However, I did not ask for the money," he said.

Even at the newly opened one-stop service building in Central Jakarta mayoralty, queuing was nowhere to be seen.

In this place, people flocked the front part of every counter without bothering to wait for others to finish their businesses.

An official at the city treasury counter did not even scold a person who cut in front of others.

Fortunately, not all state offices are so disorderly.

The East Jakarta mayoralty office is exemplary when it comes to queuing for business. Under the watchful eyes of two public order officers, one has only to queue to enter an elevator in this office.

A man who was trying to jump a queue was scolded by both public order officers and other people in the queue.

"Queuing please!" they shouted.