People with HUGE orders who won't let someone with ONE item go ahead of them in line!

[Peppergirl]

Yeah, yeah - I know. First come, first served. But come on. Sometimes it's just the right thing to do.

I'm talking specifically about Aldi in this case. They rarely have more than one cashier open, which is cool - because their prices are great. But please, if the line is 6 deep and I've got a whopping cartload of groceries and happen to look behind me and see YOU with a bag of veggies and some bananas, I'm going to let you go in front of me. It's just that simple.

A few months back, my neighbor and I were at a dollar store. There was one cashier open and this woman had TWO carts full - FULL of items. She seemed to be having a party of some sort. I need to mention here this was a true dollar store, so every item was 1.00 and many of them were those tiny little party favors. So when I say she had two carts full, it was of small items to boot.

Anyway, we were behind her with about 5 items. She glances at us, and starts unloading her shit. Me and my neighbor just looked at each other and mouthed 'wow' simultaneously. Thankfully, the cashier took pity and ordered an extra ringer and ended up directing ALL traffic to that new line. I am not exaggerating when I say that when I left this particular shopping strip 25 minutes later, I glanced in the store and she was JUST THEN paying for all her shit. Unbelieveable.

Yes, I know no one HAS to do this...but I'm consistenly amazed how often people don't extend this courtesy.

[bara]

I am not exaggerating when I say that when I left this particular shopping strip 25 minutes later, I glanced in the store and she was JUST THEN paying for all her shit. Unbelieveable.

Probably arguing about the prices...

[Mytical]

I am not sure it is possible for me to agree more. I always let somebody with less then me go before me, then again I am not in any hurry..and you know..I am actually a human being. That means yeah, I don't get upset when I get stuck behind a huge cart, BUT it is always great when they let me go ahead of them with my 1 item.

[senor boogie woogie]

I live in China. I love and like living here, although there are some things here that are a pain in the ass. One place I really abhor here is going into the bank. Invariably, there is always someone ahead of me that takes seemingly forever. There are never more than two clerks to help customers, even when the customers are backlogged. This annoys the shit out of me, if there should be enough staff to take care of everyone in a timely manner. Not so in the Chinese bank. Not only are the banks woefully understaffed, there is usually a customer wanting who knows what, and takes forever at the window. If anyone takes more than 10-15 minutes, they should be taken somewhere else in the bank and let the rest of us proles through the line.


My business in the bank takes less than 3 minutes. I either deposit some money there or I am paying the electric bill. Here in China, people do not use personal checks, and there is no real convenient way to pay the power company directly. So most use the banks.

One Sunday (banks here are open on Sunday which is great) I was in a local bank trying to pay a bill and there were lots of people ahead of me. Here, you get a slip of paper with a number on it and wait for your number to be called. This day, I had to wait an hour before it was my turn, with only two tellers doing customer service, with some a-hole monopolizing one of the windows (and actually annoying the teller).

To end the story, I was the next in line. I knew who was ahead of me and I was next. Some woman came in off the street and she was greeted by some of the front line staff. What I knew was that she was given a VIP ticket. Which means that she was going to cut in front of the line. I knew that, and when the person ahead of me was done, HER number (it has a V in front of a number) was called instead of mine. Uh no, fuck you bank. This bitch who just walked in 2 minutes ago is not going to cut in front of me who has waited an hour.

I marched to the window and demanded service, with this bitch waving her VIP ticket in my face. I was pissed. I tore her ticket and asked her in bad Chinese to fuck off, get lost, and did she fart in my face? I was very loud and got my way because the bank including the guard did not try to stop me. My business took 2 minutes. Paid my bill and left. If that bitch got in front of me, she would have droned on and wanted 5 different services and took her sweet ass time, and with the other asshat taking the other window, I would have waited that much more longer.

Yeah, I was an asshole. But I'll be damned if I am waiting patiently for service to get bumped by someone walking in the door. If she was such a VIP, she could have been taken care somewhere else. Same as in America, it's not the rich who keeps the banks going, but all the small individual account holders.

I dont go to that shitass bank to pay my bills. There is another one with much faster service and candy! Me love candy!

[HYHYBT]

Why would there even *be* a separate area for people whose transactions are going to take longer? I've never seen a bank that works that way; separate areas for the more infrequent and detailed sorts of interaction like opening an account or reporting a stolen card, sure, but never for anything involving the actual handling of money.

Of course, they should have enough tellers to handle the business. But if there were, say, five of them you'd probably never even notice that one person was taking a long time. (I fairly often spent fifteen minutes at a teller window when I was with McDonald's, particularly if someone didn't make a bank run at all the day before like they were supposed to. Multiple cash deposits mostly in small bills plus buying a round of coins takes about that long, and the teller window is *precisely* the right place to do it.)

[Ginger Tea]

I'm posting this in this thread instead of making a new thread (or joining CS just to me too a thread)

the thread in question is the move or get out cinema one, but the reason it's in this thread is it also brings up the check out analogy.
So I'm doing a twofer.

This topic
It's been a while since I've been in a situation where I am behind someone with a metric crap tonne of shopping and little option but waiting to be served ever since self service came about as I normally just buy small items on the way to or from work (sandwiches and buiscuits for break normally), yes it would be nice to go ahead as I have way less, but I also think, well they were here first, so both forms of politeness council each other out, if offered, I might decline, I did once as I had to go back to the shop for a bag of sugar as that's all I needed and carried, the person ahead of me did offer, but I said I was in no rush.

And for those that do let others pass, well you let that guy go ahead why won't you let me?
Let enough go ahead and it will feel like you are the guy with 3 items stuck behind one with a full trolley.

I don't get the reasoning behind the Chineese VIP banking system, but then again it might only be in use in China or just certain banks, but yes to be stuck waiting that long then to have your turn snatched away by some queue jumper sucks.

Off topic to the Cinema seating thread.
If it's allocated seating and you are in the wrong seat, especially if your venue has allocated and non allocated seating, then yes move.
Occasionally I go to a seated concert, If I were to be buying a group of tickets and found out that no available blocks covered my group, I would have to split it again if someone in the group changed their mind at the last minute to attend and the only seat was 10 rows away, well tough titties, you are there for the show not to chat, that's what pre/post drinks are about.
Same goes for the Cinema, more so for the cinema, if you do want to hold a conversation or make a rifftrack wait for the DVD.

My local cinema is unallocated seating all the way and I normally sit back row with the stairs infront of me, so I have no one save those walking up or down to spoil my view, One of the OP's later posts clarified their stance that some will leave a single seat between them and the next person as if they have cooties, I don't go for opening nights and actually the last movie I saw due to working lates alot was Predators (and I've been paying for their Unlimited card each month to not see movies, thank you work) but that was a mid week afternoon showing so not crowded.

I normally go alone so seating is not an issue, I agree that some groups should be fragmented if it means I can enjoy the movie not their conversation 5 rows down, if there is a couple and I am in the middle of two empty seats I will move, I will not nor should anyone else, move further down or to another row to accomodate their needs unless they are conjoined twins, there is my seat and the empty one next to it and one seat all the way down the front, well I guess the looser of the coin toss will be sitting next to me, or sitting at the front depending on how you see sitting next to me to be

[Lace Neil Singer]

If it's allocated seating and you are in the wrong seat, especially if your venue has allocated and non allocated seating, then yes move.

Agreed. Sometimes when my fiance and I go to the cinema, we pay extra for premium seating. This is cuz Fiance has a bad knee and those seats have more leg room than the regular seats. We've often gone to sit down and found people already sitting there. Most of the time, those people will shift when we ask them politely; a couple of times we've had to tell them firmly to move or be slung out. We paid for those seats; if you want premi seats, then put your hand in your pocket and pay the extra.

As for the OP's point, I agree with that totally. If I am doing my weekly shop and someone gets behind me with a pint of milk, they can go first. Since I do my shopping on a day off and have all the time in the world to go thru the line, it won't matter to me if I let them go first. It's just common courtesy.

[boringscreenname]

For the most part I let people go ahead of me when I'm at the store. I only go shopping once every 2 weeks, so I'm one of those people who usually has a cart full of stuff.

One time I was at the store and waiting in line with a cart full of stuff, and this other lady gets in line behind me and only has a couple items. I was going to let her go ahead of me until she started sighing, and huffing very dramatically and started muttering about people with large orders, and because I had my kids with me (who were behaving just fine).

After that I thought to myself, "You know what screw you lady, if you're going to be passive aggressive about the situation, then you can just wait behind me in line or find a different line." There were several express lanes open with either very short or no lines and there were also several self check out lanes open and fairly empty so it's not like she had no choice but to stand behind us.

[Andara Bledin]

In your situation, I would have turned, let her know that until she started in with that crap I was ready to offer to let her go ahead. But since she couldn't act like an adult - either waiting patiently, or asking politely if she could go ahead - I decided specifically to not let her ahead so that she could have some time to think about how her actions had worked against her.

^-.-^

[tropicsgoddess]

Probably arguing about the prices...

Or making the cashier bag the items to her inane specifications. I had a lady do that once in the front of the line AND price check stuff and constantly made the guy manning the register redo her bags if they weren't to her EXACT specification. All that shit and I could've been home in a short amount of time and I only had what...less than 10 items to ring?!! People like that make me wanna...

[jackfaire]

Other side of the coin don't spend the whole time in line trying to let me go ahead when I waved you off.

I take the bus. As such I know how much more time I have until it comes and usually enjoy the person being in front of me as it means less time standing in the rain.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I grew up with the unwritten rule that the person who arrives first gets on the bus first. I once had this old woman try and push in front of me, so I refused to let her go first. Cuz she was so rude, she lost out on getting on the bus before me; if she hadn't pushed me, I probably would have let her go on first.

[Peppergirl]

I grew up with the unwritten rule that the person who arrives first gets on the bus first. I once had this old woman try and push in front of me, so I refused to let her go first. Cuz she was so rude, she lost out on getting on the bus before me; if she hadn't pushed me, I probably would have let her go on first.

Oh yeah, if someone's being snarkly or sighing dramatically behind me before I even get a chance to offer them to go ahead of me...yeah, they're not going.