Stepping briefly out of a queue is ok, provided you didn't intend to. You should ideally ask someone next to you to keep your place so they know. If you're not back they should skip ahead. This on average makes things more efficient for everyone.
Dropping a basket at the end of a queue and immediately departing messes things up. Why wouldn't everyone do that if they could? Conversely, for short queues of people with lots of things the waiting at the end could be a significant amount of time, so I would be ok with someone who'd been waiting a few minutes to leave their basket, again prefering to ask someone to remember their place.
* Proportionate response to people who break best practice
The aim should be to adopt practices which converge to best, not converge to fisticuffs. Eg. if someone legitimately steps out of the middle and you didn't notice, you should ideally imply "It's ok, come back, but be quicker next time". If someone pushes in you should definitely firmly but politely tell them to go to the back, otherwise society will collapse and we'll turn into spain! You shouldn't hit them, that'd be worse. However, you could politely ask the cashier not to serve them first.
If someone leaves the end of the queue, what's reasonable? It breaks down here, because I'm not sure. I'd be inclined to stand abreast of the basket, and say "Oh, were you here?" when they return, and if they say "I'm sorry, I was just a moment, I forgot the whipped cream" let them on, and if they say "Hah, I'm entitled! Mwahahha, serve me, proles" say "Sorry, I didn't realise. Well, too late now" :)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-26 12:00 pm (UTC)* Best queuing practice
Stepping briefly out of a queue is ok, provided you didn't intend to. You should ideally ask someone next to you to keep your place so they know. If you're not back they should skip ahead. This on average makes things more efficient for everyone.
Dropping a basket at the end of a queue and immediately departing messes things up. Why wouldn't everyone do that if they could? Conversely, for short queues of people with lots of things the waiting at the end could be a significant amount of time, so I would be ok with someone who'd been waiting a few minutes to leave their basket, again prefering to ask someone to remember their place.
* Proportionate response to people who break best practice
The aim should be to adopt practices which converge to best, not converge to fisticuffs. Eg. if someone legitimately steps out of the middle and you didn't notice, you should ideally imply "It's ok, come back, but be quicker next time". If someone pushes in you should definitely firmly but politely tell them to go to the back, otherwise society will collapse and we'll turn into spain! You shouldn't hit them, that'd be worse. However, you could politely ask the cashier not to serve them first.
If someone leaves the end of the queue, what's reasonable? It breaks down here, because I'm not sure. I'd be inclined to stand abreast of the basket, and say "Oh, were you here?" when they return, and if they say "I'm sorry, I was just a moment, I forgot the whipped cream" let them on, and if they say "Hah, I'm entitled! Mwahahha, serve me, proles" say "Sorry, I didn't realise. Well, too late now" :)