Line Jumpers: How do you deal with it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

For the third consecutive time at a theme park I’ve had to deal with this.

Now to clarify, I don’t mind if someone needs to move ahead of me to talk to someone, then come back. Maybe their cell phone battery died or something. Or they take the cue from my confused expression and politely explain to people, “I just need to talk to my mom, I’ll be right back/I had to use the bathroom and so-and-so was saving my spot” As you can see I’m still enough of a doormat to permit people to cut in front of me as long as they have legitimate explanations.

While at Six Flags in Vallejo, my girlfriend and I were in line to go on Roar. It was about 98 degrees outside. Suddenly about five adolescent black girls aggresively shove their way through the line, and make their way all the way to the front. The first four caught us off-guard because we weren’t looking behind us and they literally pushed us aside to get past. However the fifth one, a straggler, got very angry when my girlfriend did not immediately step aside. She yelled, “EXCUSE ME, RUDE…” and my girlfriend turned around and asked, “Is there a reason you are cutting in front of everyone?” and the girl whirled around, saying stuff like “oh you did NOT say that to me!”. I replied, “Yes she did, answer her question.” and she glared at me and continued cutting up to the front of the line with her friends.

I was livid. During this whole incident, nobody did anything. We were the only people to speak up about it. I told my g/f I was going to talk to a park official about getting those 5 girls ejected from the park, but she asked me to just drop it. Since she is pretty scared of rollercoasters, and stressed out about the heat and was also on her period at the time I figured we should just drop it and not let it ruin our experience.

However, as supid as this is, it still kind of bugs me. What bothers me most was the kind of ‘Crowd Apathy’ that went on. Nobody said anything to them, nobody stood up to them or even told the ride operator they were line jumping. Anybody else have a similar experience? Had my girlfriend been in a better mood, we probably would have kept arguing with them, but their body language/voices kind of implied, “I’m cutting in front of you, Want to fight about it?” Its questionable whether I could take on five pissed-off black girls by myself, much less in a crowded rollercoaster queue. :mad:

BTW, the reason I mentioned they were black is because the last 3 times I was at a theme park this happened, and it was with a group of black girls. It might be coincedence or it could have some bearing on race- I’m not certain.

2

I publicly humiliated a woman and her husband who cut to the head of a security line at LAX. In a very loud voice I said things like “Hey! Are you cutting ahead of the rest of us?!” and “Look at those two, they think they’re better than the rest of us!” After I broke the ice I half a dozen other people in line with me joined in the ridicule.

The still managed to get through security ahead of the rest of us, but they were both red-faced and visibly upset.

3

I’ve experienced a similar phenomenon at theme parks, with African American folk cutting in line to the group of AA folks who are closest to the front. I’m sure sometimes it’s legit, but I’ve witnessed it happening several times where the two groups don’t say anything to each other, and indeed seem to behave in all ways like seperate groups. They just take advantage of the fact that many people are both intimidated by African Americans as well as afraid of causing a scene where they might be perceived as racist.

I’m glad I haven’t been to an amusement park in a while.

4

Never had it happen to me personally. But if it did I would ask the ticket-taker why he allowed such a thing to happen, get his name and then complain in writing to whoever is running the show.

Maintaining control of the people in line and ensuring there are no line-jumpers is the responsibility of the establishment, not the people in line.

5

No one has ever been so blatant about cutting in front of me as these girls were with you, but lots of times someone will get ahead and just seem oblivious to the fact that I was there first. It burns me, but I’ve never said anything to her (it’s always a her IME).

However, if I ever encounter a group like the one you describe, one of them is going get “accidentally” tripped.

6

I handle it by saying, “Excuse me - the line starts behind me.” If five girls with big attitudes cut in front of me, I’m not sure I’d say anything, either, though. I don’t want to get swarmed. I’d certainly back somebody else up who was willing to go toe-to-toe, though.

This sounds kind of funny, though - “Since she is pretty scared of rollercoasters, and stressed out about the heat and was also on her period at the time I figured we should just drop it and not let it ruin our experience.” Doesn’t sound like your girlfriend’s having a great time anyway. :slight_smile:

7

I don’t know why people let this happen, but I think it’s because of the potential for the situation to get worse or even violent. Some other related thoughts:

  1. Selection bias - you’ve only experienced this with young, black girls. The SDMB taught me the phrase “selection bias.”
  2. If it seems like a racial thing, it’s possibly a socioeconomic class thing. Young people from poor backgrounds may miss a lot of school where habits like waiting your turn are inculcated.
  3. It’s a youth thing. When people get to a certain age, they realize that they need to follow the rules.
  4. And I think the idea that there’s a potential for more trouble is tied into expectations about youth, race, and socioeconomic differences.

But yeah, it’s annoying as hell.

8

I went to Cedar Point a few weeks ago and they had many, many signs about line jumping. It never occurred to me that anyone would be a big enough asshole to do this.

I’m not sure if I would have said anything. I’m pretty nonconfrontational. But in 98 degree heat? With an hour and a half wait? Yeah, I probably would have followed them and told an operator. Cedar Point seemed pretty clear about the consequences (ejection, no refund) and they practically have an entire police department roaming around on foot.

I’m pissed off about that and it didn’t even happen to me.

9

I just say forcefully “Excuse me, but I was here hirst.” If they insist on name calling (You white bitch), I repeat “I was here first.” If they still don’t take the hint, I start a running dialogue “I was here first. These people think they can just be impolite and run the world. Who are they, in charge of the world. Totally rude.” Of course, by that time they are screaming at me to shut up, but I just keep going on.

From my experience, gangs of young African-American females are one of the scariest things in the world. I don’t know why.

10

Saw a line jumper get properly pwned on the news a few days ago. People were waiting in line for days for the iPhone to be released. This smarmy bitch shows up a few minutes before the store opened and pays the first guy in line 800 bucks to jump ahead of him. She brought a huge wad of cash with the idea that she was going to buy $16,000 worth of iPhones and sell them on Ebay. Turns out they were only offering one to a customer. I LOLed.

11

At 6 Flags Magic Mountain a few months ago some friend and myself were in line for the raft ride. A couple of sopping wet young latina girls pushed through the line toward the front where they met up with another girl and her boyfriend. My group was probably four turns away from the front. The girl’s would have been next. Suddenly a group of about 4 more young latinos started pushing through the line. People stopped letting them through. The girl with the boyfriend then yelled at the line “Let them through!” Someone further back than me said quietly (a much tougher looking older latino dude) “Why should they get to cut?” The girl (I dont know if she heard this guy) then yelled “We all want to ride together!” I then said to her matter of factly “Why don’t you wait for them to get to the front?” She then glared at me for literally the next ten minutes. The kicker was the raft that her party would have gotten on, needed exactly 5 people. Everyone in front of us had a group of 2 or more than 6. So we actually got to cut in front her. She called us “bitches” as we got on the raft in front of her. I nodded and waved.

12

I was in Pittsburgh, preparing to fly home from a lovely visit with some friends who live in that city. This was Labor Day Weekend 2001, so things were crazy but nowhere near as crazy as they would become the very next week. As I rode the airport escalators down to the security level, my jaw dropped. I have never seen a security line so long. It looked like the security line in a documentary about long security lines.

My little bag in tow, I walked and walked and I thought surely the line had wrapped around completely and I was just endlessly circling the same people. But finally, there it was: The End of the Line!

It took forty-five minutes to inch back to the escalator area. Note that the escalators did not mark the end of our wait, but just the point at which the roped in twisty-line area began. Far, far in the distance we could dimly make out the conveyor belts and metal detectors. In the meantime, the fellow linemates and I became quite friendly. We joked with one another, primarily about the length of the line, and we enjoyed the dawning horror on each new victim’s face as he rode the escalator down.

Then descended this nattily dressed fellow with a briefcase. He paused at the foot of the escalator, surveyed the line stretching out to the hinterlands, glanced at his shiny watch, and then stepped in front of me.

My jaw dropped. I could not speak.

Fortunately, I had backup. Behind me, Mr. USMC cleared his throat. “The end of the line is there,” he told Mr. Suit in a tone that brooked no discussion.

Mr. Suit was startled at being challenged. “But I came down here,” he protested lamely.

“Yes,” agreed Mr. USMC, “and the end of the line is THERE.”

Mr. Suit didn’t give up easily. “But Pittsburgh is the Friendly City!”

“Not,” said Mr. USMC, “when we’ve been waiting in line for forty-five minutes.”

Mr. Suit slunk off, although I don’t doubt that he cut someone else as soon as he was out of sight of My New Hero.

13

For one summer, I was a cashier in a supermarket.

I always made line-jumpers go to the back.

14

This is one of those things, like dealing with misbehaving children that aren’t yours, which is a lot easier to do the older you get. Not only do kids, even teens, generally have some sort of instinctual deference to older people, but you just stop caring what 5 random strangers think or say about you.

Grey hair helps. I can’t wait until mine grows in.

What I’d specifically do is put on my best Mama voice and say, “Absolutely not. End of the line, or I’m calling security, your choice,” and hold up my cell phone. It’s like working with animals - don’t show any doubt that you’re in the right or that you’ll be obeyed. Don’t ask questions. Just tell them how it’s going to be. But that probably won’t work while you’re a young male.

I…uh…wouldn’t have the balls to do it if I wasn’t in a crowd, though. 'Cause she really could tear my shit up, y’know. :stuck_out_tongue:

15

This has happened to me so many times, in so many different situations, it’s hard to know what to do.

In general, though, if you chose to engage the linejumper(s), continue to engage them or get someone in authority involved. To me, it’s not useful to “talk to the air” when this happens. OP, understanding the “overall” of your situation that day, I would have gotten ahold of someone in authority.

Screw “not learning how to wait their turn.” I grew up black, poor and maleducated and I knew how to do that. They knew it too, they just didn’t care.

In the stores of the mean streets of Brooklyn where I live, when “corner boys” just push to the front and place their order, I engage the cashier, push my money in their hand and say “Just finish this first.”

Anywhere else, I speak directly to the person.

Recently, waiting in line to enter the recreation center in my neighborhood, two teenagers line-jumped. Nobody else said anything during the whole encounter.

I told them the end of the line was “back there,” and “everybody else had been waiting.” One said, “I don’t care.” I told him, “I didn’t ask you to care, I asked you to move to the back of the line.” He didn’t, but when we got up to the checkin counter, I pushed my membership card into the attendant’s hand and said loudly, “I was next.” What he did in terms of the sheep behind me I don’t know.

16

holds up hand shamefacedly My name is Morelin and I am a line-cutter.

Well, ok, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I work at an airport and there is no separate employee security area. So TSA allows, encourages and enthusiastically endorses my line-cutting. They have even cut me infront of some people I was respectfully waiting behind because I was early, and could wait.

Everywhere else I wait my turn like I should. And as a cashier I do my best to keep track of who’s next and simply don’t see or acknowledge the line-cutter.

17

My personal method is to step in front of whoever is attempting to cut, and in a loud, clear, projecting voice state “Excuse me, the line starts back there,” while pointing.

Now, I’m a large guy in all dimensions. I’ve never been seriously challenged after making my stand, beyond a bit of verbal face-saving. If someone were to push, though, I’d probably try to engage the rest of the crowd in public ridicule and possibly get security or management involved. I’m not looking to start a fight, after all. :slight_smile:

Anecdote time: My wife and I were standing in line to see the latest Pirates movie recently. It wasn’t opening day, but the theater still had the guide ropes up and people were waiting for almost an hour in line to get into the theater. We were near the front.

Some punks thought they’d be clever and wandered over to the entrance after hitting the concession stand. They did not get in line, but were hanging around “looking at posters” and “visiting the bathroom”. It was pretty blatant what they were trying to do.

Anyway, I’d come straight from work and was still wearing my corporate clothes. I excused myself out of line, went around the center (this theater is laid out with the concessions and bathrooms in the center and the theaters on the outside), came up from behind, and in my best professional voice said, “Excuse me, folks, you’ll need to wait in line if you’re going to see Pirates. It starts back there.”

They all tried to look innocent and one of them said, “But, uh, we’re just waiting for our friend, she’s in the bathroom.”

Maintaining the “I work here” pose, I said, “Well, I’m afraid you’ll need to wait out in the lobby. People can’t be hanging out in the halls, I’m sorry.”

With grumbles, they went back to the end of the line. I waited there until the theater opened, joined my wife in line, and thoroughly enjoyed the shocked look the little shits directed at me when they realized that I didn’t work there.

I tell ya, with the right attitude, people will assume the damndest things about you. :slight_smile:

18

My husband and I were in the line for security at Boston’s Logan Airport when a couple cut in front of the two of us. The line was slow moving and so we’d put our bags down to wait, hanging out in the “bend” of those poles with broad elastic bands, which form the pathways to follow. The line moved a bit and in the few seconds it took for he and I to grab our bags to scoot forwards, the pair “cut the corner” and got in ahead of us. We grumbled but said nothing. I watched them and saw that they delayed in doing any pre-security stuff (jackets off, shoes off, that kind of thing) unlike everyone else, ignoring all of the instructional signs. When they got to the head of the line, they had to be told to do all of that, and then one of them apparently failed to remove all metal and set off the metal detector. Acting as the agent of karma, and presumably assuming that incompetents like this had surely screwed up in following security measures otherwise, they were pulled aside for more intense screening. I did some serious grinning after I was through security and their bags were undergoing the indepth search.

19

I was seeing the movie 300 on opening night. The theater was packed with a line out through the lobby and the outer lobby where you buy tickets.

Some chicks who had the air of Paris and Nicole had gotten their tix and then went to get snacks. They sauntered over to the line near where I was - finally inside the main lobby after being in the outer lobby for 15 mins - and started looking confused and then non-chalant as they nudged their way in line.

I was in the middle of rolling my eyes, thinking about how everyone in front of and behind me was a nice looking young dude who wouldn’t mind sitting with these hot, “confused” chicks during the movie, when one of the guys totally surprised me by saying “no way” to the girls.

They gave him a nasty look and went to the end of the line. I was so proud of that kid for thinking with his “big head” instead of his little one :wink:

20

First of all I have to say I’m amazed at and pleased by the lack of political correctness in this threat. I’m glad that people are able to say what they want once in a while w/o the PC police yelling “Racist.”

I’ve had the same thing happen a few times, sometimes with lighter skinnned people as the perps. I always say the best thing is to tell someone in charge but that’s hard to do anywhere I’ve ever been.