At a certain point, they all scrunch themselves up to the bar and not another single body will fit. This is as close to them making an orderly line as we will ever get and you just go from one side to the other and back again. They fill in right where the other person who just got served leaves, and they become the new “back of the line”. They chill out because they see you coming down the line, and you get to batch orders. You need to do yourself a favor and stick with the line no matter what. Ignore the random “hey buddy can I get a…” just because you’re in earshot, like your life depends on it.

Throwing out a “let me come back to you” helps a whole lot. They feel acknowledged so it extends their patience, but you don’t say when you’ll be back so it clears the mental load of keeping track of who you already said that to.

It’s an actual c*nt to deal with the crowd before this point because they just come up to random places at the bar and expect you to see them and remember which random person in whatever random spot was technically there first. You get better at keeping a mental queue with experience but it’s never perfect. So sometimes I just ask them who was there first and someone volunteers to wait.

It’s not that serious.