I ws at the DMV once, when there was a huge line, so I went back and took a second number. When I was pretty close to being served, I watched who was coming in. A woman with two small children walked in the door, and I gave her one of my numbers. Was that “cutting in line”?
One thing you forgot is fine–staking out a spot for a whole cart is bullshit.
Also, even if it’s just one thing, there are rules: the person left standing there has to have the means of payment, and if it gets to be their turn before their partner makes it back, they have to go–not delay or wave others through in some complex dance. If partner gets back and the groceries are already paid for, partner goes through the express lane.
What would this person have done if they reached the head of the line before their partner showed up? Because I’m guessing it’s not “move to the back”. Imagine if everyone did that: lines would be a mess of “holders” trying to preserve their space until they needed it, and people with carts approaching at the same time and trying to figure out their holder’s relative position among the other holders. It’d be chaos. Dogs and Cats living together, etc. etc.
Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be?
I’m sure it made you feel good to help that woman. But you chose not to concern yourself with all the other people in that huge line who were not only following the rules, but who now had to wait that much longer because of your actions.
The problem with doing this is that i’m selecting a register line based on which looks like it will get me served most quickly. So if I chose to stand behind the husband because he doesn’t have a lot of stuff and then the wife walks up with a completely full cart, I’ve been misled. That’s wrong.
And fine if you want to wander off to look for something you forgot but if your turn comes up and you’re not there, I’m getting in front of your unattended cart.
Yes, team shopping by having someone save a space in line is faster because you’re literally stealing time from everyone behind you. It’s theft of other people’s time.
I’m sure that those assholes were proud of their cleverness but they were being straight up dicks. In the scope of things, it’s not that big of a deal but it’s super lame behavior. I wouldn’t call them on it though.
Yes it’s a ballsy disrespectful maneuver, I for one would not budge to let someone in who sashayed up with a full grocery cart and expected to cut in front of the line. It would chap my ass mightily. If the placeholder was behind me and pulled that stunt I would call up the folks waiting behind the line jumper and let them cut behind me!
Sesame Street. 
One of my favorites:
I can’t believe the OP even has to ask. Yes, it’s cutting in line, it’s rude, and anyone who does it is a major-league asshole, full stop.
[quote=“chaika, post:28, topic:785193”]
Sesame Street. 
One of my favorites:
Thanks, that was cool! My sibs and I (in our 50s), still throw that at each other every chance we get.
This reminds me of another incident. I was the next in line at a register and there perhaps six people behind me. A guy came up to me and asked if he could get in line ahead of me, since he had only one item. I gestured to the rest of the line and said, “You’ll have to ask all of them, too.” The guy looked at the line and then walked away.
I think it is appalling behaviour
Yeah, that’s my (and I would think “the”) stock answer when anybody attempts to do this.
It’s trashy behavior regardless of what it is called.
Not cutting, it’s saving a place in line for someone, which is pretty much the same thing. If it wasn’t pre-planned then it is cutting in line, anyone who’s reached a kindergarten level of education knows that’s a bad thing. I guess someone in front of her in line could have just waved in everybody behind her so she’d end up at the end of the line but people seem to have lost a lot of the mob mentality necessary for such social correction.
Whether you call it cutting or “saving a place in line for someone”, you’re misleading those behind you about the amount of stuff you’re going to be checking out. And that’s not nice.
Have any Brits weighed in yet? If I trust anyone’s opinion on queueing etiquette, it’s them.
As for me, it may not technically be line cutting, but I definitely consider it a breach of etiquette. It seems to be acceptable in certain places around here, though. I once staked out a place in line for a couple friends of mine an hour and a half before a popular restaurant here was open. As the line formed, it was clear that many people just had one member of a party get in line to stake their place, with the other members joining later. The only rule the establishment had is that all party members needed to be there when the seating commenced. Unfortunately, my friends showed up late and we missed the first seating after I spent an hour and a half by myself in line. Fuckers.
I don’t really see anything wrong with it. It’s just division of labor, and there’s still only one transaction.
I consider cutting in line only bad when the cutter is using some per-person service.
So, cutting in line at the amusement park: bad. The cutters are taking up seats on the ride that the people behind them are due for waiting.
Cutting in line at the movies: fine (as long as there’s just one transaction). I can have a friend go stand in line while I park because it doesn’t take any longer to buy two tickets at once than one.
At the grocery store, it’s sort of a mix, because buying more groceries does take longer, but the social standard is that you get to wait in one line and buy essentially any number of groceries.
I’m slightly sympathetic to the claim that others are going to misjudge which line to get in because it looks like she’ll be fast but actually has a whole cart, but not enough to care much. There are all sorts of reasons why someone with few groceries might end up being super slow to check out, and we accept all of those as fine, so I don’t know why this one should get singled out.
This – not exactly cutting, but not really above board.
I would be more forgiving it if seemed to be a special circumstance, maybe an older person who couldn’t realistically walk around the store easily, and had someone helping them shop – so yeah, let’s let the older gentleman with a cane move through the process faster, but for everyone else … stop prioritizing your time over everyone else’s. We’ve all been grocery shopping before, we all know that you shop first and go to the cashier as the last step.
True!
That’s not team shopping. That’s one person shopping, and the other person actively misleading the people behind him/her in line.
That is team shopping.
First, you’re taking that five minutes from each person behind you in line. So if there’s four people in line behind you, that’s 20 minutes; if six people, it’s 30 minutes, etc., that you’re taking away from this group of people.
Second, while we all put up with waiting in lines, there’s something about the steady and visible progress towards the front of the line that helps make the wait tolerable. So it’s more jarring when someone gets to cut in line with a cart full of groceries that hadn’t been there before, than if it had been there all along and you’d accepted that reality from the get-go.
Yeah, I think this is pretty abhorrent behavior. Do your team shopping by splitting up the list and saving time that way.