Bank of China, central Nanjing, you take your ticket and wait in turn. On your ticket it shows you how many people are in front of you in the queue. Sometimes I cannot bear the thought of waiting in the queue in the bank and go out for a walk. Whenever I do this I wait five minutes and then take another ticket from the machine just in case I miss my initial allocated number. On most occasions I come back to the bank and my number is nearly up so it’s fine. In such circumstances this is what I do. I watch people coming in the bank; they all take a ticket, look at the queue in front of them and resigned to the wait they take a seat.
Little do they know that I have been observing them and rating them in this order for my upcoming random act of kindness;
- Good looking well educated men
- Less good looking educated men
- Unfortunate looking men with any sort of education
- Old men
- Young men
- Any sort of woman
- Any woman with a child.
When my number is called out I already have a target in my sights. Transaction completed, I walk past the patient row of customers and hand my spare ticket to a recent arrival who is highest up on the list thereby cutting his waiting time significantly. In that way I have made someone (a man) quite happy and it hasn’t cost a thing.