So my sister and I went shopping today, Black Friday. We get to Circuit City just as the doors opened at 7:00 AM. We noticed a long line that came from the other side of the building and slowly shuffling in through the doors. We had a clear shot at the entrance. 'cause the line was very orderly and people weren’t crowded around the doors, so we walked right in. A woman at the front saw us and objected the she and others had been waiting more than an hour. My sister blew her off saying, “That’s their problem. Don’t they know the store’s hours?” An employee at the entrance also saw us, and said nothing.
We came upon the door innocently. We were able to walk in without elbowing anybody aside or slowing anybody down. I would never do this to, say, get a better seat at a movie or concert. I wouldn’t even cut the line headed for the cash register. But to go into a retail store in order to buy something…?
Absolutely not. You were simply being creative.
What’s really annoying is when one is waiting in line to get one thing and there’s a group of people, say two mothers and five kids, who are going to take forever making their choice and then innocently decide “I’m going to give exact change Mister Man” to make it easier on the cashier or when one has one item and the person in front of you is doing their week’s grocery shopping and doesn’t even think of offering the lone individual with their only item to cut ahead in line. Of course the latter situation is for late night shoppers and there’s only one checkout open.
Now if you cut in line for tickets then there’d be beatings.
Nope. The door was open, you went in. I would only have a problem if there was someone at the door saying only X amount of people were allowed in at a time.
When people line up for an hour to wait for a store’s opening, and you show up just before it opens and cut INTO the line, then have the gall to mock those who have civilly waited for their turn, is it wrong? If I were the manager, I’d have booted you out of the store!
YES, IT’S WRONG!!! Maybe you didn’t know or expect that there would be a line, but once you got there and saw that there was one, your obligation was to go to the back of the line and wait for your turn. What would you have lost? five or ten minutes?
If you didn’t know you’d behaved discourteously, you wouldn’t be trying to weasel out some kind of justification on this board.
Yes, screw them for being orderly citizens. Idiots. Next year let’s all just say to hell with each other; let’s all be “creative,” and cause a riot, because, fool me once, ya know?
Obviously what you did was not wrong, but imo it was quite rude.
I’d have to agree with AuntPam here, if there was a line of people who were patiently waiting, then you were in the wrong to cut in front of them, whether it be for the opening of the store or to get to the checkout before them. It seems like no big deal, considering the circumstances and the relative importance of “getting inside the store first” but it was rude none the less.
Yes, what you did was wrong and rude. If everyone behaved the way you did, the situation would become not only chaotic but also very dangerous. Don’t you realize that the only reason you could get in without hurting anyone was because everyone else was behaving civilly?
Was there just one door that everyone had to go through single file, 'cause every Circuit City I’ve been to has at least 3 sets of In/Out doors, so I don’t see the need for a line.
Sheesh.
I gotta side with WSLer here. Every Circuit City, and every retail store, that I’ve ever been in has multiple sets of entrance doors, so why were they waiting in a single file line to get in? The reason that retail stores have many entrance doors (besides fire codes) is so that they can get many people to enter without waiting in line, so that those people can give them money. If the customers were supposed to wait in line and enter through one door only, the other doors would have been locked.
Of course, the fact that these people showed up an hour before the store opened doesn’t bode well for any of them thinking to use all the doors that the store provides for their customers to enter the store.
There a set of 2 wide automatic double doors that slide apart. There’s room for maybe five or six people abreast to go through it. The people in the line were either single or in pairs. There was plenty of room for more people to go through at once, but people weren’t clumped that way. We went through open, unused entrance space.
As a Canadian of course you’re going to say it was rude. Canadians always think Americans are being rude. One time I had to listen to a woman from Vancouver rant (in her quiet Canadian way) about people jaywalking in NYC! You guys really like obeying the rules, don’t you?
Anyway, in response to your question, check out the thread linked in the OP.
chula:I believe it was Monica Gellar on “Friends” who said, “Rules help control the fun.”
yojimboguy:If this was, in fact, a great big line up for a great big sale, then I’d have to say cutting in was a definite no-no, regardless of my polite, Canadian slant. Sorry.
Today is the busiest shopping day of the year in the US. Traditionally stores run incredible sales of a few items that are only carried in limited numbers. You get there early to take advantage of this. Some of these people had been there, in Wisconson where it gets very cold, for an hour or more. Patiently waiting their turn only to have this kid and his sister waltz in and buy the item they’d been waiting for.
Well…I could see myself doing the same thing, out of complete ignorance.
I cannot comprehend why people would wait in line for a stupid sale like that. If I saw all these people waiting in line, I’d assume they were waiting for some specific thing (free tickets or whatever), and since I obviously had no interest in such a thing, I’d just saunter on in.
This is exactly the same if you go to the check out counter and everyone is lined up at one stall, but down at the end is a lone check out person. Do you stop and ask if half the line would like to move down that counter before you? No, you run for it and get out quick!
Now if you are in that slow moving line and some goomba steps in front of you as if you don’t exist then I believe Heinlein’s solution as put forth in “Time enough for Love” is applicable. Put together a Kangaroo court, get a rope, and hang the bastard. The offender obviously doesn’t know how to live in a civilized society and is a waste of the rest or our oxygen. I look at it as our duty to civilization.
(hijack pit rant)
So, I’m walking through Frankfurt airport, I get to the Security check point and notice a huge milling crowd waiting to go through the scanners. I also notice the sign that indicates business travellers go this way. I go that way and find that everyone, economy and business, are going through the business check stall anyway. I go back to the guard at the entrance and ask him about why they have two lines at the entrance and then stuff everyone into the same mob as soon as they get in? Typical mouth brether this guy was.
He says, “It’s to bad for you there is no business class line”!? Seeing the futility of even attempting to argue with this drone, I go back inside.
I ask a few people who look like they eventually migh make the business class check if they have business tickets (I’m not adverse to butting in if I have the right to do so), they do, so I go to the back of the end of the line resigned to my fate.
I’m standing there and I see new arrivals pretty much doing what I did originally. They walk in, look at the signs, look at the line, look at the mouth breather at the guard station, look back at the line. You can see the life drain away from their eyes as they realize what I had just come to terms with and off they shuffle to the back of the line. It would have been rather funny if I wasn’t in the same line with them.
But, not all the people are so civilized. Some just go to the front and butt in! After a few of these and realizing the people in front of my must be sheep because they aren’t doing anything about it, I start to get a little peeved. I ain’t the typical polite Canadian doormat!
I yell out at one guy, “Hey, the back of the line is behind ME!”
Ignorant Idiot, “I have a business class ticket!”, his English heavily accented.
Me, “So do I!”
II, “I’m in a hurry!”
“So, am I!”
II, “I have a plane to catch”
“Exactly what do you think I am doing in this line? Waiting for a bus perhaps? Get to the flippin’ back of the line!”
II says, “My plane leaves in an hour!”
“So, does mine. When did you become more important than me? Get to the airport earlier next time, but just get to the damned back of the line!”
Now he pipes in with the kicker, “If you are the type of person Germany lets into our country now then we do have problems”!?
And he’s the one butting into line!
I don’t want to start a fight, so what can I do?
There are a couple of european sounding kids standing in line next to me laughing softly at me, or the situation. No, problem, probably Euro sheep, but finally I start to hear other people complaining. All North American types as I don’t hear any accents. And they start getting vocal. People start to get the message. Some move out of in front of me who had butted in earlier and move to the back. Ah, I love being the instigator!
I keep looking at the dipwad guard to see if he was ever going to move from his chair and do something! Nope, dead fish eyes is all I see from him. No one cares let alone this fucktard. I couldn’t see him moving from that chair for any reason. I wonder if I had a doughnut, or a shnitzel, or whatever they call a damn doughnut in Germany, if that would have made him move? I’m not above bribery if necessary.
All it would have taken to solve the problem was some barriers like you see at Disney Land, or any other place that handles large crowds to keep people in the queue. That way no one gets pissed off and everyone gets to where they need to go without a chance of a riot breaking out. German efficiency in action it seems. Having been in Europe quite a bit I know how Europeans consider queuing to be an optional thing, but you would think that the airports would know this and deal with it. And Europeans have the nerve to think Americans are rude and obnoxious!
So, I eventually get through the security check, Yay! Oh, oh, customs…THE FREAKIN’ MOB WAITING IS 10 TIMES LARGER THAN THE ONE I WAS JUST IN!!!
But, having been through that airport many times I knew of another check point just down the hall, so I bee-line it there and manage to get through in under 5 minutes. I had the satisfaction to see ,just before I went around the corner, Mr. Ignorant Idiot, standing about 60 deep in the crowd waiting for his turn at the customs gate. Have a nice flight, Asshole!
(/hijack pit rant)
Yes you did wrong. Very wrong. Line cutters are the scum of the earth. Normally I do not subscribe to mob justice, but line cutters deserve all the humiliation – not to mention beatings – they get.
Which brings up a related topic: cowardly and indifferent sales staff. In my opinion it is the store’s responsibility to establish and enforce “line management” and those that don’t are just as guilty as the cutters. I can’t stand stores that just allow a willy-nilly mob of shoppers to pool in front of the counter while the counterperson(s) just yells “next.” What do they think this is, some sleepy ribbon shop in Victorian England? The manager should be shot and the store should be burned to the ground.
If I owned a store I’d hire some HUGE take-no-sh*t linebacker type guy – like the John Coffee character in The Green Mile movie – to manage the register line. When some idiot cut the line he whould lift him up by the scruff of his/her neck, shake him/her like ragdoll, strip him/her of his/her goods and toss them in the snow! Boy, I’d enjoy that – the lawsuits be damned!
Sorry, but this one of those topics I have strong opinions about.
I don’t think this is an ordinary case of line-cutting, (in which case I am with the rest who propose mob justice). There was no butting or elbowing your way in front of a bunch of people in a line.
There was one narrow line, and two wide doors, both open, both welcoming people in to a store (not to a concert, or a theatre, where lines are commonplace). I’d figure that the other open door was open for a reason—because they wanted people to pass through it. There were no guards there, there were no signs indicating which doors should be used, no nothing. So I’d probably do what Uzi descibed—I’d take the “short” line, and not look back. I’d figure that the other line was there for a specific reason—one that I don’t know anything about, and one that I don’t have any interest in investigating.
