What does this school mum actually think the rest of us are queuing for??

[aperolspritzbasicbitch]

In general I arrive at my child’s school for pick up about 5 minutes before the playground gate is opened. Not on purpose, it just happens that sometimes the walk is quicker than others. Sometimes I’m the first one there, sometimes there are a few people in front, and others join the queue behind me.

One particular mum will turn up bang on collection time (fine) and just walk past the queue of people patiently waiting and stand right in front of the gate.
As if we aren’t all there for the same reason.

It actually baffles me that she seems to think that her need to collect her child is any greater than the rest of us, but so far haven’t said anything because I can’t be arsed with any playground drama, although yesterday I was tempted to side step in front of her just as the gate was open.

is this not just straight up rude behaviour?

It just feels annoying and anti social in this case.
Forming a queue prevents 4th and 9th person who come from chatting with each other for the sake of useless artificial line.

Maybe not forming the line would make everyone happier.

I think ive solved it - a single-person path leading to a single-person gate creates the appearance of a queue because people naturally line up in single file as its narrow. This gives the illusion of a queue and has created some expectations of the norms of queuing - eg you dont bypass the queue. But as there is no purpose to this line of people other than to walk through a closed gate into a waiting area ...... Its not a queue .....

..... its a bottleneck !

Bottlenecks do not have unwritten rules of behaviour (as far as I know).

Is she Amanda from Motherland?

again, I’m queuing because I’m unable to walk through a closed gate

but one is not the logical consequence of the other?! This mum also can't walk through the closed gate , and yet she is not queuing...

Of course they do, the person in front of you goes first. How utterly bizarre. In the UK that is how things work, it’s called manners.

It’s absolutely fine for you not to agree with me. I wasn’t looking for anyone to change my mind on my thoughts on it, or validate me - I didn’t post in AIBU.

absolutely every other parent there sees it as queue, so it really doesn’t matter that people who aren’t involved in the queue don’t.

like I said up thread, next time I’m close enough I’ll side step in front of her as soon as the gates open. Her reaction will tell me if she sees it as a queue or not.

While op is now conveniently insisting this is the world's narrowest gate, I can confirm the same "queuing to go through the gate" system happened at my children's primary. And this was to go through a gate that was wide enough to get a whole fire engine through.

I'm surprised all schools don't have wide gates, as this micro-gate arrangement must be terribly inefficient once some people are leaving and others are still arriving

But anyway, in circumstances where the gate is nice and wide would people still feel that this was a queue? To me it's just people lining the pavement while they wait for the gate to open . Because once the gates open it doesn't cause any issue for multiple people to go through at once.

You've interviewed all the other parents there about this? Or you can read their minds?

I actually said it’s the same width as a front door, so actually probably not a candidate for world’s narrowest gate. There’s also no ‘now’ about it - I included the width about 10mins after my first post on Friday. I also said it’s not the main gate, that is probably wide enough for a fire engine. Not sure though, don’t use it.

this really seems to have riled you up. Projection, perhaps?

Nope. Just bored waiting for my coffee to boil.

My children get themselves to school now. I just find playground dramas entertaining

Oh right. To me it’s reading a bit like it’s dawned on you that several people will have thought you a CF back in your school run days, and you don’t like it.

i mean, enjoying drama doesn’t normally include accusing people of lying about the size of gates even though they’ve been very clear throughout, or being deliberately obtuse.

enjoy your coffee

But it’s not “nice and wide” in this case.

“lining the pavement and waiting for a gate to open” - sounds to me very much like a queue!

😂

Nope. I don't care if people think I am a CF because I know I have a disability that means I can't stand in a queue. So I regularly skip queues and I don't owe anyone my medical history.

Why would having a disability mean you to simply go to the top of the queue to stand and queue?

If the 4th and 9th person wants to talk to their friends then that's up to them to sort out - that's not what this woman is doing though.

Oh my, I must have been living out of the UK / in France for too long. Is there any point to this school queue? What are you queuing fir?

and the example of the shop… would people really form a queue to enter a shop in a specific order when the doors open? That boggles my brain. The nearest supermarket to my kids school here didn’t open until 15 minutes after school drop off, so everyone would just mill around outside then just walk into the shop when it opened 🤷‍♀️ why would you be fighting to get in first?

Does this lone wolf gain any advantage by walking to the top of the queue? Do her actions cause anyone else to suffer? Or is it just one of those petty irritations where said woman has chosen not to submit to a useless tradition of irrational and pointless queuing? If she is in fact causing Tarquin’s mummy to wait a little longer to embrace her darling, then I can certainly understand there being some irritation towards her because that’s just not cricket.

Yeah, but the OP&few others are forming a queue, expecting others to join this arrangement.
We don't even know it is a narrow pavement, for all we know there can be loads of space but some people decide to form a line and create an expectations that others should do it as well.

Like is it just along a pavement? I could understand that if a ‘crowd’ around the gate would cause issues. But if not, I wouldn’t join the queue either.

You said what I thought. What a drama out of nothing.

There is something inherently obnoxious about school mums... they think the world revolves around them, that the rest of us could actually give two shits about their little darling and that they are ALWAYS right about everything...

What is this fuckwittery? Queuing whilst waiting to enter a premises is absolutely reasonable and jumping ahead is rude. Where you are in the queue doesn’t effect when you collect your child but that is irrelevant as the purpose of the queue is to enter the premises not collect the child.

Well, that's about 8 million people, potentially, give or take.

School dads are fine though? Just taking a wild guess.

Never heard of having to queue, we just wait in a group and collect as they trickle out. Sounds weird to me to have parents in a queue like at the supermarket checkout

Tbh I wish the school mums at the school where my mum lives would queue. Instead they double park with the cars blocking the pavement on one side. Then stand about in groups totally blocking the pavement on the other side too. If you try and walk through them they glare at you and huff and puff like you're the problem. If they formed a nice orderly queue on one side of the pavement it would be much nicer.

There's currently a petition by the residents to have the road designated as a school street which will at least sort the parking issue.