Queueing lessons

Dubai's expatriates are not sleeping very well these days but they have certainly refined the art of queueing.

The worldwide credit crunch has them worried about securing their fiscal futures and that of their families and left them bug-eyed and irritated.

A few months ago, Dubai's residents were chafing at the bit over sky-rocketing inflation, high prices and high rents but they still found time to be optimistic about the future.

That optimism quietly shifted into a mild despondency over finding suitable affordable accommodation, ensuring children will continue to go to school and that sackings and pay cuts do not become the order of the day.

Then along came the spectre of the Emirates ID card's December 31 deadline and the biggest worry of most is: "How am I going to get my bar code?" Those who survived the grist mill by sitting endlessly at their computers while their screens showed "error" and still managed to register are relieved but there are still hundreds of thousands who have just woken up to the process.

Colleagues have been waking up at odd hours of the morning, some as early as 2am, to get in line for that all elusive numbered token and have consistently failed to get it because there were others who were there at 1am. The various confusing reports on categories, deadlines and fines have not helped.

It's enough to make a grown man cry and I have witnessed a few who just broke down in frustration.

In my experience, a line beginning to form in front of an institution at unearthly hours was strictly reserved for Third World visa seekers at the US Embassy.

That has changed now with new scenarios. School admission times see parents in sleeping bags lined up horizontally for that elusive place in kindergarten. Newcomers now camp out overnight at an already overwhelmed Maktoum Hospital for their medical tests.

Early birds at the Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation offices wait in hope of a low-rent home.

And then there's the taxi rank and, of course, the streams of young people waiting to get into that exclusive club and by the time the estimated population of Dubai doubles by the year 2029 we will have taught the world to queue. Britain, eat your heart out!