I went over to the coffee and donut place this evening to pick up enough caffeine to get me through the last hour of work, and it happened again.
There were a couple of people on line right up at the counter, and one more person on line behind them
About TEN FEET behind them.
I do not know why people do this.
I have lived in several different geographic areas of the U.S., and have gotten used to how people wait in line. Typically, a couple of feet or so from the person in front of you seems to be acceptable personal space, so you aren’t obviously eavesdropping on conversations, or venting garlic fumes or B.O. on your neighbor in line. But TEN FEET (or even more) seems bizarre.
Beyond bizarre, it is discomfiting because a) the line gets straggly and blocks the path of people entering or leaving the restaurant/fast food place/theater, not to mention forcing the tail end of the line out in the cold or rain during bad weather, b) it encourages line cutters (or innocents who can’t figure out where the line is if it doesn’t look like one), and c) it keep me from readily being able to read the menu (at a fast food joint) if there are just a couple of people on line and the person in front of me is leaving a huge gap between them and the counter.
Instead of assuming this kind of queueing behavior is a local aberration, maybe I should be re-examining my assumptions above polite line behavior. Am I wrong here, and 2-3 feet is not enough personal space to provide my fellow queuers?
What about the situation where, there’s a person at the counter and you come up the appropriate amount of distance to the right of the person.
Then, someone comes up and stands just to the left of the person. When the person at the counter is done, there’s this uncomfortable 1/2 second where I have to be FORCED to say, “Uh, I’m next” and sound like a whining asshole. When, in realty, the person who stood to the left broke protocal by not adhereing to the already established “line”. HE’S the asshole!!!
That behavior bugs me, too. I try to tell myself it’s not worth being irritated about, since it really does not make any difference in how soon you get to the front of the line. The only etiquette potentially involved is if you’re waiting for an ATM; in that case it’s polite to give the person in front some privacy, which is of course not an issue if you’re all waiting for a burger. As noted, it is inefficient, sometimes blocks others from entering, and so on. However, it’s better than the person who standsalmostonyourheels.
I don’t know how often this is the case, but when I stand this far outside of the line, it’s because I haven’t yet decided what I want; I don’t want to get to the counter and hold the counter person up by hemming and hawing over my order. Of course, when this is the case, if I see someone approaching the line, I’ll say something like “you go ahead; I’m still trying to decide”.
I also find this puzzling. Usually what I do is give the person a perky, hearty “Excuse me, are you IN LINE?” which prompts them to move up about 70% of the time.
The only time I have encountered this is when the person is not sure which line is going to move the fastest so will hover back a little so they can slot into the quickest moving line.
I find the following scenario at some places a little odd too…okay, two cashiers and one line (usually I find this at 7-11). The line forms behind the person at the second cashier and as the first cashier finishes w/her customer, the person in line walks up to that register. Everyone waits behind the person at the second cashier, and which ever one opens up, the first person in line walks to that register. Inevitably, someone comes in from the front of the store, grabs their stuff and heads straight to the front cashier, seeing that a line of a few people is behind the second cashier. Grrrrrrrrrr! We’re all waiting for the next available register…not idiots ignoring the fact that only one person is being attended to at the first register.
Did anyone follow that?
That said - - I too do the perky “are you in line?” thing to folks who are standing no where in recognizable relation to the cashier. :rolleyes:
I’d say 2-3 feet is fine in most situations. The exception would be situations involving personal information. For example, I usually leave extra space at an ATM because I don’t want people to feel uncomfortable.
As the cashier, I absolutely HATE that, too. Especially when they jump in too fast for me to pointedly look at the proper person and start helping them. All I can do is take them and then apologize to the customer you should have gone first.
What I hate the most though, is when people crowd up on the line. We have a big sign that says “Line starts here,” MOst people will stand there and wait for me to call them, but some people have to stand right behind/next to the perosn I’m helping. Look, people there are two reasons we have the line form up way down at the end. One is that that is where the registers start, so if I need back-up or the shift changes, you may find yourself in line past the register and that causes confusion and back-up. Two, having the extra second it takes you to walk down gives me time to ‘clean up’ after my customer, and allows time for if the register decides to shoot out extra receipt paper(We’ve been giving out a credit card promo for months now. Nobody wants it anymore). So, if you insist on trailing after a customer, I will ignore you(politely) until I am ready for you.
Wow, that was more than I intended to say.
If I saw a person standing ten feet from the rest of the line, I would probably assume that person is not actually in the line, and would therefore stand behind the last person who actually appeared to be standing in line. If the person standing ten feet away from the end of the line had a problem with that, I’d apologize and say that they were standing so far away from the line it didn’t look like they were in it. Probably let them in front of me but tell them to stand closer to the end of the line next time so as not to confuse people.
Lines are a problem for sure. You don’t want to be too pushy on the person in front of you, but then again, you DO want to appear that you are indeed in line.
I’m usually not in a big hurry, so if I see a lady with a child, or someone that just seems to be in a hurry, I will usually let them go in front of me. What grinds my gears is, that some of these people take the invite, then when they get to the cashier it seems they have some long-winded business to do (like a return, or some other kind of dispute). Then I say to myself, well if I would have known you were going to take 10 times as much time as a regular customer I would have never let you in. But there are a certain percentage of people in this world that are just the “I win, you lose” types, you encounter them on the busy streets of the city every day.
What drives me batshit is when people pull that kind of crap in drive-thru lines. When the car ahead refuses to pull up behind the other car, and there’s a huge gap between them. Don’t they understand how drive-thrus work? Don’t they understand that if they don’t pull up, the cars at the end of the line are being forced to cut into the parking lot? Pull up and then count your fucking money asshole!
It is amusing to watch people who don’t pull close enough to the drive-through window and either have to climb out of the car window or actually get out of their car thus defeating the purpose of using the drive through.
I don’t generally have problems with lines. In the UK though, people seem to be obsessed with standing in line. If there are 2 ATMs next to each other, oftentimes I find that there is one with a line of people and the other one is free. Normally, I’d assume the one with no line is broken, but this is not usually the case. This type of situation seems quite common and is a source of bafflement for me.
On another note, it always makes me happy when someone lets me in front of them because I only have a few items and they have a shoppingcart full. An easy way to put me in a good mood for the day.
When I ran a cash register, I would simply, but politely, tell the line cutter, (pointedly looking past him to the “real” next customer), I’ll be right with you sir/ma’am, this gentleman was next. Then I’d wait on the person who actually was next.
IMO, line management is the responsibility of the store employees/boss. Nothing pisses me off like a store where the cashiers just cower behind their counter, cry “next,” and serve whoever shows up in front of them. They just turn a blind eye to the jungle law that exists right in front of their faces.
Really? When I have been in a cashier’s position, if someoene was rude or clueless enough to cut in line, I made it a point to point out to them that they were cutting in line and that the line starts over there points to back of line “I’m sorry, sir, but this customer was here first.”
I HATE when the cashier does not do this (when I am in line).
When I was working in a movie theater this summer it pissed me off to no end when people would do things like this. It was mostly when they were getting their popcorn tub or huge-ass drink refilled, I guess they thought that entitled them to skip the lines, to the point of yelling over the counter at one of us while we were working on someone else’s order, telling us to refill their damn tub. I would just politely say “I’m sorry, you’ll have to get in line,” which usually caused them to huff and pout and complain that they were missing their movie. Oh well, the people in line were here first…
Lines should adjust according to the amount of space available, the number of people available for the line, and the degree of confidentiality needed. If you come in and there’s 10 feet between two linees, the middle people should move forward a bit when you join the line. You shouldn’t have to ask but if they don’t move up they probably will when you ask them, “Are you in line?” As the number of people in line increases, the space between those lined up should decrease as necessary.
If it’s a pick-up line at a pharmacy I think about 5 feet is the minimum space between the person being served and the next. Pharmacies are often set up so there’s more of a “waiting area” than a line and people need to notice who’s already there when they got there and not go until all those people have gone, or ask the folks already there if they’re in line or not. Sometimes people are just waiting with/for another person that’s there.
