To find most Brits bemusingly obedient?

I’ve never seen one of these receipt scanners - is shoplifting a really big problem in the places that have them?
Probably not now

I don’t know where you shop op but most store barriers i have seen would require me to either limbo under them or need a pole vault to get over.

I’ve never seen one of these receipt scanners - is shoplifting a really big problem in the places that have them?

Queueing is fair whether you like it or not, some people just don’t have any patience. Generally people don’t mind making the odd exception when that seems fair too.

I agree with what other have said about rules like recycling, parking in the right places, picking up dog shot etc all seem to be gloriously ignored - and those people are arseholes. Don’t be an arsehole.

You think the Brits love rules? Have you been to Japan, because they are on another level. A level which we savage British could only dream of 😂

This is why I always follow the rules, because otherwise people will accuse me of following the culture of my homeland, or doing the "cultural thing" instead of seeing me as an individual. "Loving" though I am.

No!!! I’m stressed, just reading this that must have been so awful

I always take a receipt in case I am ever accused of shoplifting - it is a lot simpler just to have one. I have never been asked for one but I do keep it (Tesco express near us alays bleeps me for steak as they never bother to remove the tag but I have not been stopped leaving with it).

if we don't follow rules there is anarchy. Come down to one area very near me where it is anarchy at times with double parking in the road normal because that is the culture of the homeland of those people, loving though they are, they certainly have not chosen to follow the Highway Code. I am not saying all those who go to that shopping area disobey the rules but in that place it is a cultural thing to double park, not walk far, need the car directly outside the shop even if you are double parked in the road.

@MCOut , I’m white and I always take a receipt, after once being stopped at an Asda exit when I hadn’t. A pack of steak had a small security tag on the back, which I hadn’t noticed, and the self service checkout hadn’t summoned anyone to remove it.

So I had to wait, flanked by 2 security guards, while they rummaged in the bin for my receipt - thank God they found it.

Never again! I took a receipt the other day for just one item in Boots, which I’d paid for with Advantage card points!

You can rephrase the OP question as 'AIBU to believe most Brits care about fairness and are not selfish idiots', in which case, YANBU.

Your last paragraph - a lot of people are concerned about such issues, plenty of threads on it at the time too.
The OP is just being arsey. Someone jumping over a barrier thinking they're edgy is pointless and embarrassing. OP is mostly focused on being rude and making a tit of herself in supermarkets, showmanship does nothing when it comes to bigger, more pressing issues.

Those people who mock Brits for queuing - I'd love to know what their fantastic alternative is. Just a big free-for-all bundle? Everyone standing around awkwardly, wondering who shpuld go next? Or maybe, based on a previous comment by the OP, what we should do to be 'fair' is interview everyone who's waiting, to establish how needy or deserving they are. Sounds great

Well I just used a till barrier in Sainsbury's. I can confirm tbat the till does automatically print a receipt for you and you would have to be very very tall or an Olympic level hurdler to jimp over one.

I've never seen these barriers, but I don't think it's unreasonable for shops to implement measures to deter shoplifters, so I see no reason not to comply. The idea that shoplifters are mostly just hungry is nonsense. Why should paying customers have to pay more to mitigate for money lost to shoplifters?

@Torven

I haven’t read the whole thread but I agree with you - though I would say passive rather than obedient. Unquestioning .

The UK likes to tell itself that it is a fair society ( usually pointing to queuing as an example) but no society which accepts a hereditary billionaire as automatic head of state is ‘fair’ and that unfairness is fixed in place from the top.
It is reinforced by MSM
The population is subject ( ha!) to constant low ( and recently not so low) level propaganda

Look at the recent arrests of republican protesters. Wave a union flag and cheer for Charlie = pat on head .
Wave an anti monarchy flag and boo = a number of arrests .
That should concern everyone regardless of how they feel about monarchy.

I'm a smoker so didn't 'support' the ban as such, but i certainly didn't object. Just got on with it. It made sense, and it was fair so there was no arguing with it.

Oh quite. Entirely.

It's just amusing since at the time it was the End Of The World As We Know It and now something that could be repealed with a single line of a Ministers pen.

I would hazard because most people, even smokers, support the ban.

When the indoor smoking ban was introduced there was a lot of anxiety amongst local authorites about how they would be able to enforce it. What actually happened is it is self enforcing. It has quickly became a strong social norm that you do not smoke indoors. I was on a train recently where a drunk guy lit up, very quickly several passengers strongly admonished him and made him put the cigarette out.

Yet, weirdly, the smoking ban is the one law we could dump now we're out of the EU. Why aren't people clamouring for that sovereignty ?

I've just been in France where everyone in the local Monoprix queued up obediently to scan their receipts at the exit barrier.

I mean the French had to fill out a fucking form to leave their houses during covid, I suspect if that was introduced in the UK there would be plenty of forms with dicks drawn on them.

Social norms are a strong thing and queueing in the UK is a very well embedded social norm. These often work better than enforcement.

When the indoor smoking ban was introduced there was a lot of anxiety amongst local authorites about how they would be able to enforce it. What actually happened is it is self enforcing. It has quickly became a strong social norm that you do not smoke indoors. I was on a train recently where a drunk guy lit up, very quickly several passengers strongly admonished him and made him put the cigarette out.

Sorry about the accidental happy birthday very disproportionate

If people don't pay for their shopping or train fairs then the companies have less money so things get worse in terms of price or service. If your child doesn't go to school they are less likely to get qualifications and lose life opportunities .British people expect their rules to be sensible and proportionate. The covid rules were much less Draconian than many places here which was why there was little dissent. The clever portrayal of the EU rules being disproportionate was a reason for people voting brexit

We couldn't handle out washing or do noisy housework/DIY work on a Sunday in Germany.

I've lived in Germany for ten years and never come across any rule about hanging washing out.

I would welcome the 'party' rules, but the government would take the 'putting my washing out on the line' rules out of my cold, dead hands!

Round here, most people would insist on the queue order being kept and would wave those who were ahead in front of them.

Though with a baby people often offer for me to go in front of them. I've only taken them up on this (and been very, very grateful) a couple of times in full-on meltdown scenarios. But then I figure I'm doing everyone a favour to exit as quickly as possible in those situations 😂.

The most awful example of rule-breaking I've ever seen (and exactly why we need rules and social codes) was a man trying to get on a crowded tube train who wheeled a woman in a wheelchair off so he could fit on. I was standing on the platform and everyone around was so gobsmacked... it took a few moments for all of us, the lady in the wheelchair included, to process that this had actually happened.

If we're talking about queuing in general, how many people have been in a queue when it's been moved to another till, and the people at the back get to the front of the new queue ?

(To be fair I was once moved in a queue like that, and the till manager made sure the order was kept.