How To Cut In Line and Not Get Caught

ewenc writes "A psychology study of hundreds of people waiting for front-row access to U2 concerts points to the best ways to cut in line and not get caught. 'Super-fans' are most irked by queue-jumpers. People were equally peeved whether someone cut in front or behind, and cutters who jumped beside a friend were less likely to attract scorn."

Comments

Re:And the reward for most useless researcher goes

[dnwq]

Preventing people like acting like pricks? Someone has to design the crowd control system, you know.

Just what we needed..

[!coward]

Oh great!

Now science is coming to the aid of line-cutters everywhere.. Though I'm usually not the type of person willing to wait in line for hours (regardless of the reason), seeing someone cutting into a line (however short it may be) really pisses me off.

It's one of those tell-tale things about a person's character. It implies, at the least, that the line-cutter lacks civility, or simply couldn't care less for "social norms". At the most, it's a sign of someone who simply thinks the "rules" do not apply to them, and everything that can get them ahead is fair game. In the latter case, it's also often accompanied with smugness: "stupid idiots waiting in line."

Sure, cutting a line is by no means a serious offense. And in most cases these lines are purely informal, so one could make the argument that cutting the line is a simple display of expedience, and that no rules have been broken.. But seeing as though many of society's rules are entirely unwritten (and often unspoken), such attitude is disruptive to say the least. Not trying to spread FUD here, but it's the kind of thing that when widespread, brings nothing but chaos into even the most simple of things.

Re:Just what we needed..

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless a line cutter gets his face smashed in, there is nothing stopping that behavior. Its becoming quite common for people to just find a wide gap between people, say "excuse me" (or nothing at all) and claim their place.

Its rude, but there are zero consequences to the act unless security sees it and does something.

Re:Just what we needed..

[mauthbaux]

Agreed. It irks me to no end when people do this while driving.
 
  In fact, I deal with it daily on my commute home. There's a section of road where the two lanes merge into one, with the right lane ending. I cannot count the number of times that I've seen someone rushing along in the right lane trying to get as far ahead as they can before they're *forced* to merge (by which I mean they try and force the people in the left lane to let them in).
 
There are *plenty* of signs warning that the right lane ends, merge left. They're just under the delusion that somehow they don't have to merge until the very lsat possible moment; and furthermore, that it's the *responsibility* of those patient saints in the left lane to *let* them cut in.
 
I make a point of not letting them cut in front of me. I'm legally entitled to the area of space my vehicle ocupies (plus a buffer zone in front and behind sufficiently large to prevent fender benders no less). Yet these cheats are *demanding* (with screams and threatening gestures at times) that I *sacrifice my rights* for their momentary convenience.
 
  Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but to Hell with them.
 
  And yeah, I'll be leaving work in a few minutes, and I'm really not looking forward to the drive home.

Makes no difference

[Mishra100]

Generally, I have more important things to care about than if I have to wait an extra minute and a half because 3 people just got in front of me.

If I'm in line, then I just expect to wait and wait it out. -5 or +5 minutes in a 60 minute wait doesn't make a difference to me... I would rather stand there and zone out into Willy Wonka land and be happy.

Now in a situation where I'm not expecting to wait, it is much more frustrating. For example if I step up to order a hamburger, and the cashier decides to step out to smoke first... Then I'm irate.

Re:Makes no difference

[vux984]

Generally, I have more important things to care about than if I have to wait an extra minute and a half because 3 people just got in front of me.

Agreed.

How do you feel if its already been an hour, the line up is half way around the block, and people at the back will take an hour just to reach the position you are at now; and there is probably 50+ people and another half our so to wait in front of you.

And then over that period, half a dozen groups of 5+ show up and join their various friends in front of you (we're talking couples meeting other couples, or groups of friends meeting other groups of friends -- not a boyfriend joining his wife, or the driver joining his group after parking here. This effectively adds another 30 people in front of you, pushing you back another 30 minutes, while speeding them up about an hour and a half.

It gets ridiculous, and infuriating.

I remember when the Wii and PS3 were selling out at launch and people were lining up. Some stores instituted one of the best trends I've ever seen to defeat this, and some lines even SELF ORGANIZED into doing this; they had someone give out numbers to the people as they arrived. One person got one number. (And they were limiting it to one unit per customer.) So if a group sends someone over to line up a 1am, and then his 5 friends showed up at 5 minutes to opening, they couldn't effectively cut in and score a Wii or PS3 while guys that had been there for hours lost out entirely.

Re:And the reward for most useless researcher goes

[onion2k]

Why does research have to have an immediately obvious purpose? I'm sure there have been millions of discoveries made by people just "messing around" with some aspect of science. This sort of thing is great in my opinion. If we only funded research that could be justified as "useful" the world would be a much more boring place.

Instant Cut Priveleges

[192939495969798999]

Everyone knows there are a few ways to cut a line that work every time:
1) be in a wheelchair,
2) be carrying a screaming baby,
3) have "credentials" of some kind.

So if you have a press pass and a screaming baby and you're in a wheelchair, in theory you should be able to cut the restroom line in the last game of the world series, Boston at NYY, wearing a Boston hat, without getting a second look.

Re:Instant Cut Priveleges

[randyest]

I'm surprised that no one else has taken the time to point out that you are, in fact, a dick.

Umm.. No shit?

[Facegarden]

I think i learned this in high school when waiting to buy stuff at lunch. See a friend? Go say hi, start talking, act like you're not going to buy anything, and then when your friend gets to the front, look kind of surprised and "decide" to order something. Or instead, say "thanks for saving my spot", which people somehow value as a legitimate line technique. At a concert, try "hey man, wow, it took me forever to find parking!".

Now give me my god damn nobel prize.

What the hell is it with "researchers" doing projects that i figured out in high school?
-Taylor

Re:Umm.. No shit?

[geekoid]

Becasue your one little piece of life is nothing more then an anecdote?

Everybody knew things fell to the ground before Newton, did he waste his time?

Sorry about anon, apparently having a few actual interesting stories(to me) happen at once means your going to hit the limit pretty damn quick.

Re:The best way

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you start your interviewing at the back of the line, moving forward as you go. Everyone knows you are just interviewing. Time it so that you are at the front when the gates open and just go in, continuing the current interview.

Best method of cutting without getting caught:

[Chris Burke]

Murder everyone else in line.

You may get caught for the murders, but no one will ever know you cut in line.

The Implicit Line Code

[Deorus]

When I was at school there was an implicit code among students in which you could let all your friends get in the line AS LONG AS IT WAS IN FRONT OF YOU. Teachers couldn't understand how every student was fine with that, but since everyone accepted it and everyone benefited from it from time to time nobody ever complained.

Re:And the reward for most useless researcher goes

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, there's a bunch of them. Right off the top of my head, I can think that such studies could be useful in terms of understanding how to best evacuate buildings, how to design queuing areas, how to optimize queues so as to be as unannoying and brief as possible, etc.

Re:And the reward for most useless researcher goes

[eh2o]

Well here in the SF area we have a system called FastTrack for going through bridge toll points without stopping using an electronic pass.

During peak hours the system gets jammed due to non-FastTrack drivers abusing the open lane to cut in line.

The system directors need this sort of study to understand that it is a serious problem that can create road-rage in addition to delays. And traffic engineers need to systematically analyze the behavior to determine what sort of countermeasures are needed to control it.

Re:And the reward for most useless researcher goes

[vegiVamp]

Anyone else find it ironic that you have to buy a book about finding out why you buy books ?