How about queing for the cafeteria or rollercoaster or something, where people go in groups? I consider it an exception to the rule to allow a person to cut in to join their friends (provided the queuers outnumber the cutters) provided I get to do the same sometimes. It seems to me that most people prefer to wait slightly longer sometimes, but less at other times, and eat with people they know.
I suppose this system is hard on people with no friends…
ah CanvasShoes justice is done 
Although that’s not so much line cutting so much as getting back at an asshole.
I’d say that’s a little different. Like if my girlfriend goes to get in line at the movies while I go to park my car, then I join her, it’s not the annoying sort of cutting we’re talking about.
Regarding cutting to join friends, I’m okay with it if it is one or two people. A group of friends I used to hang out with at college would send one or two people to the theater to get tickets and then stand in line. Shortly before the film began, the teeming masses (the rest of the friends) would descend on the theater and get in line with the ticket buyers. This group was usually quite large, fifteen or twenty (or more). Myself, I would always get my ticket from the buyer at the front of the line and then take my place at the end. But most of the rest of the group would push in to the front of the line where the ticket buyer was. I try to put myself in the shoes of the people already in line, and if I were standing in line, I would be horribly offended by twenty people cutting en masse into the line, so I never did.
JOhn.
jkusters, what you describe is expressly forbidden in certain places - and I’ve seen it happen. My first visit to a theme park in 1993 - we’re in line for something, and all of a sudden five kids walk up and pop in next to their two friends a few feet ahead of us. A quick holler to catch a park employee’s attention got them all sent back to the end.
I don’t think that the idea of a “place holder” stands up. Rare exception: King’s Island has some ride lines near benches, so I have seen people keep up with their companions’ place in line by hopping from bench to bench. And I can understand that a little bit better - my feet get tired, too.
Oh yea, if it’s hordes, it’s a totally different story.
hehe, it was a pretty sweet victory alright.
Rude camperman threatened to ruin everyone’s good mood and good day with his attitude, it was so funny how “community spirit” came together to passive(-aggressively) teach him a lesson without a voice being raised other than his.
But yeah, it was sort of off topic 
What pisses me off is something that happened to me at the supermarket recently.
Like most people, i choose my checkout line based on how quickly i think each line will move. And one of the main criteria for this is how full each shopping cart is.
So i found a line where one person was loading his cart onto the belt, and there was one other person with a quarter-full cart in the queue. This seemed like the best option out of all the lines available, so i pushed my cart into place and waited.
Well, it turns out that the guy right ahead of me is shopping with his SO, and while he waits in line she is running back and forth with a basket filling the cart. Within a few minutes of my joining the queue, the cart is virtually full. I thought about saying something, but just then another checkout lane opened up and i raced into first position and got served before them.
Fuckers.
Zenster isn’t being an asshole or defending cutting perse, but he/she is saying it’s okay to think your time is more important than others’. Am I the only one who reads the post that way?
As to the OP, I never cut. If a new line opens up, I let the others go before me…blah blah blah. Yes, I’m a friggin’ goody two shoes. That said, I get really annoyed with a friend of mine who constantly cuts line. Let me give you Dopers the situation and you tell me if I’m being an anal bitch.
Annoying Friend (AF), second travel partner (STP), and I needed to buy train tickets. AF told us to get in separate lines from her. I wondered why but didn’t ask. As it turned out, she watched to see whose line moved fastest and then when my line moved fastest, both AF and STP came rushing to my line to cut with me. I thought this was terribly rude, apologized to the people behind me, and grinned and bore it. AF is a petite hyper woman who rushes everywhere she goes. STP has a bad knee and I always walk with her because AF leaves us in her dust. AF will often rush to get in the line and then when we arrive, she tells us to get in line with her, thus breaking queue. Finally, I said loudly to her, “I am not breaking queue in front of three people! It’s just rude and makes no sense!” If it were thirty people, I suppose I could justify it in my mind, but three? She just couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t break queue!
To my mind, however, this breaks the “The number of people in line must exceed the number of cutters” rule. What do you guys think? And what of her “Get in all three lines” strategy?
I always try to keep an eye on cutters in the hopes that I can later catch up to them and gloat about the fact that they haven’t gotten so very far.
An example: I was waiting in the security check-in line at the airport and a woman sort of sidled up next to me. At first I thought she was with a group that was right behind me, but she kept getting farther from them and closer to me. I think she’d just jumped in line there. Finally, I looked at her – standing right next to me in what was more or less a single-file line – and said (coldly) “Do you want to get in front of me?” She replied (also coldly) “Can’t I stand next to you?” I just shrugged and got behind her. Whatever – if she needs to be ahead of me, fine. One more person probably isn’t going to make that much of a difference, right? She was apparently so keyed up about being late that she got permission from a guard to get through security faster than the rest of us peons. I lost track of her 'til I got to the gate. Turns out, she and I were on the same flight. Heh.
Interesting – I came to this thread with this ethical question on my mind. When The Two Towers opened, we all agreed to meet at the theater at 7 for the 7:30 showing that night. There were probably eight of us meeting.
When we got there, we discovered two things:
We hadn’t planned it this way, but in order to all sit together, we joined him at his place in line. I’ve always done this (joined my friends in line if I show up late, let them join me if they show up late), and I’ve always seen other folks doing this and not minded. But we got some nasty glares for it.
Is this not copacetic? Is there some sort of rule about how many people can join one person currently in line?
Daniel
Absolutely! After all, aren’t queue jumpers a royal pain in the ass? Besides don’t you just want to just crown them? (Preferably with a length of rebar.)
Uhh, gee, I only let people cut in front of me when there is absolutely NOBODY else behind me.
Likewise, I only ask someone to let me in if they’re the only person in line. What is it with you presumptuous assholes that makes you so desperate to paint me up as some sort of villain just because I avoid being a hidebound bastard who refuses to bend the rules a little when it hurts no one?
As I mentioned above, the only reason I ever ask for cuts is because I probably give out twice as many of them as I take.
I wish you could see the looks of gratitude and relief I get from poor schnook stock clerks who are faced with waiting in line for half their break time just to buy a breakfast or lunch snack. You might have a change of your (putative) heart.
IMO, it’s okay to do this as long as the three people are paying together. I figure that with one person in line, there was going to be one transaction for that one person, and then if there are two people with that one person but still only one transaction, they haven’t spent that much more time. That’s the only time I ever do that, though.
Well, eight people cutting in to line ahead of me, especially for something like a very popular movie, would certainly cheese me off. Especially if several groups were doing it.
At a movie, good seats are a precious commodity. Therefore, you really want to be as close to the front of the line as possible. When you make the plans to arrive early enough to get a good place in line, you set an expectation of what kind of seats you will get. Then a bunch of yahoos come along and cut into line, joining a solo friend of theirs. If this happens enough, or with large enough groups, the good seats you thought you had are translated into far corner right up against the screen.
If it were me in your place, I would greet my friends, grab my ticket if one had been purchased for me, and then get myself to the back of the line. I got there no earlier than the people who are currently at the end of the line, why should I get better seats than they did? It seems a matter of simple (and possibly uncommon) courtesy.
JOhn.
I was actually the “victim” of a “reverse-line-cut” last week! I was in the market, with 3 or 4 items. I got in line behind a woman and her daughter. The daughter (about 9, I think), looked at the stuff I was holding, and said, “Mom, can that lady go ahead of us? She’s only got a few things”. The mother said of course, then explained that her daughter was doing a “good deed of the day” each day for Girl Scouts. A small gesture? Yeah, but it made my day!
Oh lord. Now you’ve done it. I’m officially fucking rattled. A woman was ahead of me in line at the express lane a few days ago. She was two people ahead so I couldn’t see what was in her cart, but certainly it couldn’t be more than ten things. She chortled as if she beat the system by putting 12 cans of cat food, 5 2 Liters of Pop and about three packages of toilet paper on the cart…then guffawing at her own cleverness, she turned to us and said…
“It’s only three DIFFERENT things…HAW HAW HAW HAW.”
Fortunately I had my flamethrower, and I toasted her face off, carrying home her charred skull to add to my collection.
Question for clarification: Was this line for the ticket buyers or ticket holders?
If it was ticket holders, I would think it wasn’t so copacetic - one holding the space for 7 others. I would do as jkusters said. Also, your friend could have tried to save seats in the theater.
If it was the ticket buyer line, the one in line could have purchased 8 tickets. If you could go into the theater after buying tickets (i.e. no ticket holder line waiting), you aren’t (in my opinion) cutting in front of others. Just as if you had bought your tickets hours before. You don’t have to wait for those in the ticket buyer line to buy before entering. (follow?)
If there was a ticket holders line after the ticket buyer line, the other 7 could stand in that line (since you don’t have to show the ticket to get in line) and then wait for your friend. Not only would one person be “cutting”, but it is (IMO) acceptable to do this.
Actually, jarbabyj, I think she was correct. At least this is what I have been taught. It has to do with the checker being able to hit “12 at” and then scan one thing versus scanning 12 different things. Just like a six-pack of soda is scanned as “6 at” and scanning on can (since some places will sell single cans). Would that be 1 or 6?
but the scanner didn’t do that. She scanned each one individually. Don’t count on the 15 year old goth behind the counter to work efficiently.
jarbabyj - good point. I kind of like that at our local grocery stores, the screen keeps count of the number of items. If only they would tie it to an “alarm” of some sort when people exceed the maximum of the lane.