Queuing etiquette

whomitconcerns

So it's pretty hot today and there are big queues in the train station for security (Eurostar from London). I'm queueing and there's a big sign saying please use all basket queuing areas, and there are 4 areas, the people in front are just waiting and the security lady is saying nothing and now 3 of the 4 areas are empty, so I go ahead around them to one of the free areas.

Next thing security woman says I have skipped queue, I say big sign to use all areas she says that's her job not mine to enforce that, there was one person in front of me before I moved. Says not my decision to make but then tuts st me and walks off.

Was I wrong?

callaway92

Queuing in London for anything is no-holds barred in my eyes. All rules go out the window.

Ruu

You should have punched the person ahead of you in the back as a gentle reminder that it was their turn on case they were not paying attention.

MilesMorales1

Cor blimey mate you're holding up this queue you are.

DontThankMe

Where other nationalities mass frenziedly, the British queue. Turn up at a railway station, or a supermarket, or a post office and you will see an orderly queue.

It all dates back to the days of rationing in the long years during and after the World Wars of the last century, when queuing effectively meant the difference between an empty plate and a plate filled with the delights of powdered egg and leaden bread.

In such dark days, the queue was an opportunity to catch up with the community, check that your friends were still alive and moan about the privations. Even today, grumbling in a queue is one of the great British joys - there is a liberating anonymity in conversing with someone whose back is to you; the grumbler in front will turn enough so that you can hear them but not enough so that you exchange eye contact and graduate to actual personal interaction and the implications of intimacy that that might entail.

For foreigners, the art of queuing must seem esoteric at best and maddening at worst: queue-barging is the worst solecism a foreigner can commit; even the reticent English will feel justified in sharply pointing out the back of the line to any errant queue-jumpers. If in doubt, it's always a good idea to ask "is this the back of the queue?" and avoid giving offence.

But there is the finest of lines between queue-barging and proactive queuing - and anyone that isn't fully committed to moving forward an inch for every inch that opens up will earn the equal opprobrium of the crowd queuing behind.

Wheelie bags are a new spanner in the works of the immaculate British queue; gaps cannot be closed sufficiently; bags that should be held in front or put on the ground and kicked forward are now loitering in such a way as to trip the unwary.

But we can absorb such wrinkles into our queuing science: for nothing can sully the joy of being in the queue (say, at passport control or at the supermarket) that beats another queue. Such moments of pure adrenalin are what life is all about.

whomitconcerns

Now that's an answer!!

DontThankMe wrote: »

Where other nationalities mass frenziedly, the British queue. Turn up at a railway station, or a supermarket, or a post office and you will see an orderly queue.

It all dates back to the days of rationing in the long years during and after the World Wars of the last century, when queuing effectively meant the difference between an empty plate and a plate filled with the delights of powdered egg and leaden bread.

In such dark days, the queue was an opportunity to catch up with the community, check that your friends were still alive and moan about the privations. Even today, grumbling in a queue is one of the great British joys - there is a liberating anonymity in conversing with someone whose back is to you; the grumbler in front will turn enough so that you can hear them but not enough so that you exchange eye contact and graduate to actual personal interaction and the implications of intimacy that that might entail.

For foreigners, the art of queuing must seem esoteric at best and maddening at worst: queue-barging is the worst solecism a foreigner can commit; even the reticent English will feel justified in sharply pointing out the back of the line to any errant queue-jumpers. If in doubt, it's always a good idea to ask "is this the back of the queue?" and avoid giving offence.

But there is the finest of lines between queue-barging and proactive queuing - and anyone that isn't fully committed to moving forward an inch for every inch that opens up will earn the equal opprobrium of the crowd queuing behind.

Wheelie bags are a new spanner in the works of the immaculate British queue; gaps cannot be closed sufficiently; bags that should be held in front or put on the ground and kicked forward are now loitering in such a way as to trip the unwary.

But we can absorb such wrinkles into our queuing science: for nothing can sully the joy of being in the queue (say, at passport control or at the supermarket) that beats another queue. Such moments of pure adrenalin are what life is all about.

sheep?

DontThankMe wrote: »

Where other nationalities mass frenziedly, the British queue. Turn up at a railway station, or a supermarket, or a post office and you will see an orderly queue.

It all dates back to the days of rationing in the long years during and after the World Wars of the last century, when queuing effectively meant the difference between an empty plate and a plate filled with the delights of powdered egg and leaden bread.

In such dark days, the queue was an opportunity to catch up with the community, check that your friends were still alive and moan about the privations. Even today, grumbling in a queue is one of the great British joys - there is a liberating anonymity in conversing with someone whose back is to you; the grumbler in front will turn enough so that you can hear them but not enough so that you exchange eye contact and graduate to actual personal interaction and the implications of intimacy that that might entail.

For foreigners, the art of queuing must seem esoteric at best and maddening at worst: queue-barging is the worst solecism a foreigner can commit; even the reticent English will feel justified in sharply pointing out the back of the line to any errant queue-jumpers. If in doubt, it's always a good idea to ask "is this the back of the queue?" and avoid giving offence.

But there is the finest of lines between queue-barging and proactive queuing - and anyone that isn't fully committed to moving forward an inch for every inch that opens up will earn the equal opprobrium of the crowd queuing behind.

Wheelie bags are a new spanner in the works of the immaculate British queue; gaps cannot be closed sufficiently; bags that should be held in front or put on the ground and kicked forward are now loitering in such a way as to trip the unwary.

But we can absorb such wrinkles into our queuing science: for nothing can sully the joy of being in the queue (say, at passport control or at the supermarket) that beats another queue. Such moments of pure adrenalin are what life is all about.

Beautiful!

Japanese love an auld queue as well, especially for trains. I read once that Cubans are also fond of them, but I could have been misinformed.

The_Valeyard

Skip me and I will burn your house down.
In an orderly fashion.

Ruu

I prefer a queue to a line. You could get anything by telling someone to get in line.

suicide_circus

Its a cliche but in my experience Spaniards, Israelis and the Chinese have no concept of queueing

LightsStillOn

suicide_circus wrote: »

Its a cliche but in my experience Spaniards, Israelis and the Chinese have no concept of queueing

I was in an Israeli queue once, by the time I got to the front of it they'd built a wall around me and I had to queue again to get out!