Saturday, September 12, was the first service day we ran on Serve513 from the front door to the last station. The Registration Desk signed neighbors up, the Welcome Desk took their orders, and the barber, shower, and clothing stations worked from live queues instead of paper. Here is what the database recorded, read back on Sunday morning.
Every figure below comes straight from the app’s records. Times are Eastern. Nothing is estimated.
At a glance
The morning, half hour by half hour
The first profile was created at 9:00 AM and the last at 11:11 AM. Between 9:30 and 10:30, 45 of the 57 registrations came through, so that is the window the desks have to be staffed for. Every neighbor who came through was new to the system: all 57 profiles were created that morning.
Orders tracked registrations almost one for one, 59 orders for 57 neighbors, and three volunteer accounts did all of the registering and order-taking.
What neighbors asked for
Almost everyone wanted clothing (57 of 59 orders) and a hygiene kit (50). Haircuts (27) and showers (24) were the two services with a real wait, which is why they get their own section below. Orders bundled services: 25 asked for three, 10 asked for all four, 19 for two, and 5 for one. Hygiene kits go out at the desk with the order, so they never enter a queue.
How the stations did
| Station | Check-ins | Done | Missed | Not closed out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clothing | 57 | 33 | 0 | 24 |
| Barber | 27 | 19 | 8 | 0 |
| Showers | 24 | 21 | 3 | 0 |
Clothing took 57 check-ins and packed 116 items. Of those neighbors, 45 got exactly two items, and two came back for a second round. In the app, 33 pickups were closed out. The other 24 were still marked “ready” at the end of the day, which almost certainly means the bag went out and the pickup step never got tapped. Read 33 as a floor, not as the number of bags handed over.
Barber ran two chairs and took 27 check-ins: 19 haircuts done, 8 marked missed (called up, and no longer there). Two of the 19 were closed out together at 4:51 PM when the queue was cleared for the day.
Showers ran three stalls and took 24 check-ins: 21 showered, 3 marked missed.
Waiting versus serving
The barber line is where the morning slowed down. Half of the neighbors seated waited 56 minutes or more for a chair, and the longest real wait was 93 minutes, for a haircut that took about 18 minutes once they sat down. The showers kept pace: a typical wait was 18 minutes for a 15-minute shower, and nobody waited more than 49 minutes.
At about 18 minutes each, 19 haircuts is close to six hours of chair time. On two chairs that is nearly three hours of cutting for arrivals that all came in a two-hour window, so the wait is arithmetic, not a volunteer problem.
What to change before next Saturday
- Add barber capacity, or spread the arrivals. A third chair, or steering haircut requests toward the second half of the morning, would cut the wait more than any change to the queue screen.
- Close the pickup step at clothing. The app still lists 24 bags as not closed out. One tap per bag; without it the day’s clothing count understates the work.
- Listen for the missed calls. Of the 51 barber and shower check-ins, 11 were marked missed. Worth asking whether the call-out was heard across the room, or whether neighbors were at another station when their turn came.
About these numbers
- Read from the app’s database on Sunday, September 13, using the service day’s own date in America/New_York.
- Neighbors counts each person once, by profile, if they had an order that day. Services requested counts every service ticked on those orders. A check-in is one neighbor joining one station’s line.
- Wait is check-in to seated; in the chair is seated to done; both are medians. Two barber check-ins closed within seconds of each other at 4:51 PM are excluded from the timing medians but still count as completed haircuts.
- Volunteers are the distinct accounts that created profiles or orders.