How to read a Tbilisi dock queue before six

Stand at the gate before the first slot, not after the kettle. Copy the dock list even if it is a photocopy with tea rings. Then write a second list: every trailer already on the apron, with the time it arrived if the guard will say.

The queue is the gap between those two lists. A “busy morning” that cannot name the gap will keep booking the same 05:40 window. In Tbilisi wholesalers along the Rustavi road, the usual pattern is three inbound trucks and one bay still finishing yesterday’s last pallet.

Do not start with the pick face. The pick face is innocent at dawn. The argument is on the concrete outside. If a carrier says the window was open, ask which bay number they were given. Many were given a smile.

When we draw a queue strip, we keep the booked time, the bay time, and the minutes on the apron. Supervisors argue with minutes more calmly than with moods. If your list has no minutes, you are still describing weather.