Thought I'd share what happened to me the other day.

I went into the Post Office to pay a versement . There was nobody there and five free tills.
I went to a till and the woman said that she could not attend to me as I had not taken a numbered ticket. I replied that I had not taken one as there was nobody at any of the tills. She said that she could not help till I got a number so I walked to the other side of the office to get one.
I took it to her where she then screwed it up, put it in the bin , took my cash for the bill and then gave me a beaming smile and wished me a good evening
Has this happened to anyone?

Yes, SBB.

Rules are rules .

There might conceivably be more to it than that - maybe they're keeping some sort of stats on how many customers are served per hour?

I thought that too, but she did not even look at the number. Maybe the ticket machine is checked at the end of the day to see if they have enough customers.

You have to dig that!

You mean you didnt see the hidden candid camera?

They where obviously having a slow day. Everybody has to do something to keep their job interesting.

MathNut is right on this one. These numbered tickets not only help keep the queueing-impaired Swiss people under control: the number system is used for statistical purposes. It allows the Post to monitor the amount of customer traffic throughout the day, and they also seem to like using it to monitor the average wait time of each customer as measured between the time of ticket issuance and the time of them being served at the counter.

Of course, no one actually sits around at the end of the day counting paper tickets: the paper ticket is not used for any purpose other than to show the person behind the counter that you are indeed customer number 471. Around the same time your ticket was being rolled up into a little ball, the clerk probably also pushed a little button on a computer to confirm that customer 471 was being served. This computer also knew that ticket 471 was just printed ten seconds previously, and so your wait time was quite low. However, during peak hours the number of customers waiting rises quite a bit. Depending on how many tickets have been issued that have yet to be called to the tills, some machines give an estimate of the wait time until you will be served. The post office I go to in Lausanne also gives a daily printout of statistics for the previous business day. Generally all it shows is what percentage of customers the previous day were served within a given time interval (e.g. 95% of customers were served within 5 minutes.) Seeing as how keen the post office seems to be about these statistics, I'm sure it's a rule that all customers need to take a ticket before being served so the transaction will be recorded for statistical purposes.

So that lady at the post office wasn't totally mad. She was just doing her job.

HM

and not the wanker the op thought!

Happened to me too. Welcome to Switzerland. We might discover all in a sudden that in reality we are surrounded by cybernetic robots, who knows?

Though shit like this may not happen in the UK where you are from there is even worse in countries such as the USA (where bureaucracy flourishes). At least here there was a purpose behind it that was not just the person behind the counter trying to feel important. And most importantly she smiled.

Now you mention it, I don't think I've ever eve seen a ticket go as high as 200. IIRC they wrap back after 199.

That's not really the important point here. I think you'll find that the machines differ in this regard.

Uh oh! I think we have an anarchist in our midsts.. "shape up or ship out buddy!"

Every evening, after the post office has closed, the tickets are collected together and processed in a big machine. The sweat, sebum and other secretions left upon those crumpled tickets are peeled off, analysed, and the DNA extracted, for purposes which remain unknown to all except those who know all about it.

It is suspected that the post office is running a huge cloning scam which will enable its specially bred drones to take over the country, as soon as they are all old enough. They will come, wielding pink payment slips and rubber stamps, and Switzerland as we know it will cease to exist.

Not that we're likely to notice any difference, of course...

I love the Swiss post ticket system. If I had my way I would introduce the same system in places like Migros where people have no queuing manners!

I don't know about that RR. A couple of weeks ago i was in Migros and the woman behind me was tutting and huffing. I had neglected to move my basket off the shelf thing (which would have necessitated her lifting her arm an extra 5 cm to put her basket into it) nor had I put the next customer divider thing on the conveyer belt.

She was not only doing her job, she was also protecting her job. If post offices don't have enough customers, less staff is being hired, or the office will be closed.
Frequency statistics are common tools to adjust human 'resources' in all retail business.

...and to ensure that the hours of closing can be modified if necessary to ensure that demand is cut off when customer traffic may be too much to handle.

dave

I have to say that this is what I love about Switzerland. In the UK there can be a queue of upwards of 30 people in a post office and one sour-faced post office cashier to eventually serve them.

The rest of the cashier windows have blinds pulled down with "Please go to the next cashier" marked on them.