Line Jumpers: How do you deal with it?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Line jumping is possibly my biggest ‘hot button’ issue. I’m normally pretty mild mannered, but I won’t tolerate line jumpers. In fact, the only time I’ve ever hurt someone was due to a line jumping incident:

We were in line to see a band at a local bar. Big crowd, and we had to stand in line at the gate for about an hour. About five minutes before the doors opened, a bunch of guys about my age just pushed their way directly in front of us with a cocky, aggressive attitude. I told the guy in front of me that the line was at the back, and he’d better go there and take his friends with him. He spun around to face me and said, “What are you going to do about it?”, to which I responded, “Trust me, you don’t want to find out.” At that point, he tried to give me a two-handed shove in the chest, but instead I grabbed his arm, pivoted him over my hip, and dumped him out of the line. Unfortunately, there was a steel post (one of the ones that holds up the velvet ropes along the line), and he landed right on top of it. His buddies had to pick him up and carry him away. I actually felt bad about that for a while. But it wasn’t intentional - I just wasn’t going to let him strike me.

Another situation almost turned out worse. My wife and I were playing pool in a local bar, and there was a big line of people waiting for the table. WHat you’d do is going up to a chalk board and write your name at the bottom of the list, and when it was your turn you’d play your game and erase your name from the board. Well, this night there were about 20 names on the board, and this aggressive-looking young guy walks in and just writes his name under the next one in line, and sits back down at the table. I calmly got up, erased his name, and re-wrote it at the bottom. When I turned around, he was standing there with his nose about six inches from my face, saying, “What the hell do you think you’re doing???” I just stared him down and said, “Putting your name at the bottom where it’s supposed to go. Apparently, you made a mistake and put it in the wrong spot.”

So the guy pushed past me, erased his name from the bottom, and wrote it back in next in line, then he turned and said, “What are you going to do about THAT?” I just smiled, put my face right up to his, and said, “I’m going to erase it again, and put it where it belongs. Apparently you didn’t hear me the first time. I suggest you leave it there.” And I turned around, erased his name, put it at the bottom, and went back to my table. He left it there. But I could tell he was very close to deciding to make a bigger issue out of it.

62

I would just like to point out that Sam Stone is, indeed, a Canadian. We’re all meek and polite until you push us. Then you get happy fun surprise. :smiley:

I personally would like VCO3 to come tell us how he handles line-jumpers. I’m guessing it involves gun play.

63

Only if the line is on the sidewalk.
Oooh! What if we send a line of women with double babystrollers to line up on the sidewalk, like, a two for one sale at the Baby Gap or something?! We might make his head lit’rally explode! :smiley:

64

Another airport line story - this time, queuing for passport control at Heathrow. It was a long, long line, even for us privileged folks with EU passports. A prosperous, 50-something white businessman, carrying a briefcase, simply strolled pass the first 4 corners of the “snake” (thus cutting c. 75 people) and announced to the nearest cuttee: *“I don’t like queuing”. *

Now, to be fair, the two guys in front of him turned round and lambasted him, one of them calling for security, until he slunk off. But I bet he’s learned that technique works. As I say, he was prosperous and respectable looking, with quite a bit of gravitas. And the cuttee was a little old lady who looked a bit out of her depth in the airport. I’m sure, 9 times out of 10, the arrogant cock found his balls-out “I don’t like queuing” strategy gets him into the line.

65

I worked as a security officer at a Six Flags for two summers during college, so I’ve seen my share of linejumpers. A couple of comments:

Black people do get caught jumping lines more than white people, at least at the park I worked at. This is indisputable, drawn from statistics we kept. That does not, of course, mean that black people jumped the line more often than white people, just that they got caught more often.

White people, however, had their own way of causing problems- in theme park jargon “ride misconduct.” This includes most often defeating the safety mechanisms to stand up on the ride as it goes over the top. (There are a couple of other things that are “ride misconduct” but that’s the big one.) In actuality the ride misconducts caused more inconvenience for the other guests because when the ride operators saw this type of thing they had to halt any subsequent trains from leaving the station until that person’s train was stopped and the person was off (I guess this was in case the moron fell onto the tracks or something). White people were waaaay more likely to engage in ride misconduct, (again, verified by our statistics), in fact, I don’t recall a single black person ever doing this in two summers. What this says about relative intelligence I’ll leave to you.

Linejumping can cause all kinds of problems, including fights. Our park had a very tight policy with no exceptions, that most people would think were too tight. For example, if you left the line to go to the bathroom, you could not return to your place in line. I thought this was a horrible rule until the first time somebody was trying to return to their place in line and pushed past someone, possibly Diogenes, who went nuts and started kicking the shit out of him right there in the queues. I remember jumping over like 50 railings to try to get in there to help the poor guy out; I later discovered that the guy had left the line to go to the bathroom and his party was holding his place. The person he pushed past didn’t know that and didn’t bother to find out before stomping on his head. Also, at the end of the day we had guest relations personnel that would interview people about their day as they were exiting the park, and the biggest complaint by far was linejumping. The people complaining about linejumping were not aware if the linejumpers were cutting or returning to their place that they had left, they just saw someone jumping and it made their experience worse. So we had to put a stop to it for those, and other, reasons.

66

If you lane jump at a BC Ferries terminal, they’ll pull your car out of the line and put you on last.

(I’ve also been told that if it’s a full run, they’ll make you wait for the next ferry but I’ve never had the chance to verify that with a BC Ferries employee.)

67

I was directing traffic for a big university event this Spring. A line of anxious parents and students wrapped around a full city block. People had arrived three hours ahead and were, for the most part, queuing well. I’d had no problems and no complaints.

Until a pair of nattily dressed parents try to walk past me, into the theater. I stop them and point: “The end of the line is back there.” They look at me, complete shock on their faces and ask “Why do we have to wait in line?”

Good lord. It was either politely point them to the end of the line or try to incite a class riot.

68

So, how did the class riot work out? :smiley:

69

For no reason at all I’ll point out that there’s a perhaps obscure (since I’ve only recently heard about it) stereotype about white people being prone to cutting in line. I learned about it a couple of years ago when I was telling people about an experience being cut in front of and at least two different people interjected with “they were white, weren’t they?”

70

That’s odd because it goes completely against my experiences. Then again considering where we live I guess it’s no surprise.

71

I’m just grateful this thread wasn’t about a horrific new country&western dance trend.

72

Praise the Great Workers’ Revolution!

73

<ob nitpick>That was ricin. It doesn’t glow in the dark.</ob nitpick>

In the UK (where queuing is a cultural way of life) the germans have a poor reputation for queue jumping (and towel planting). I’ve not seen it myself.

Si

74

The Black is a notorious line jumper. This goes back to the days when The Black who finished field work first was removed from work duty and bred to create better field hands. Some figured this out, and would “line jump” to be the most likely candidate for removal from work for mating. The results of this selective breeding can be found in The Modern Black’s tricky nature, lack of desire to work, and propensity to line jump.

75

My hubby was waiting in line at the sirport in Mexico to come home. For those of you (and me) that have never flown from Mexico, they have the red light/green light program.
A guy rush in front of my hubby and cut him in line. Brent is a big guy, but this happened pretty quick.

The guy ended up getting red.

Which would’ve been Brent’s, had the man not cut the line :slight_smile:

76

My older sister and I went to a lameass haunted house last Halloween and there was very long line into the entrance. A couple of teenaged boys showed up near us and positioned themselves in an area where the line was a little loose and non-cohensive, so that they could slip in “undetected” by the throng of people who had been standing there close to an hour. Before they could carry out their plan, my sister–dressed up like a cat, mind you–got in a rather intense staring match with the leader of the two. Then she put him on blast.

“Don’t. Even. Try. It,” she said, in a tone of voice that said all that needed to be said.

Then the kid tried to play dumb, but my sis wasn’t having it. She just continued to stare him down with mean, don’t-mess-with-me eyes. In that moment, she became a cat. I could almost see her hackles raised. I was afraid of my sister.

The kids drifted off. They really had no choice because my sister the cat was gonna get them if they didn’t.

And apropos of nothing, I’ll add that my sister is black. The wannabe line-cutters were white as all getout. Perhaps black folks who cut are more blatant about it than whites are, and are therefore more likely to get caught. The sneaky, let-me-just-stand-here-and-slowly-meld-with-the-line thing might be a more white strategy. Or maybe not. I usually don’t notice cutters because whenever I’m in line, my brain automatically goes into daydream mode and I cease to pay attention to my surroundings.

77

I don’t understand. Does that mean the guy was the one designated for additional searches?

78

I usually either physically block them from cutting in line, or try to be polite while explaining they had to go to the end of the line. Occasionally I raise a ruckus. I have never noticed any sort of racial trend whatsoever. I have, however, noticed that many of these line jumpers are clueless idiots rather than deliberate assholes.

79

Yes, open bag searches of his luggage. Heh heh.

80

FWIW, I would have happily shat on this thread for its pointless stoking of racial fires had I noticed it earlier. So you’re bubble’s only in tact by virtue of the thread’s uninteresting title.