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?

I actually kind of look down on people in the queue. I'd rather just wander around until the gates open if I'm accidentally early enough which is pretty much never.

And yet the woman who is ignoring the queue is delaying nobody and is elbowing nobody out of the way.

I should imagine plenty of people are actually in a rush to get away, it’s just that it is eminently possible to get through a gate without queueing if you don’t all rush at it at once and shove the competition aside. At a football match, you cannot guarantee people have the manners not to surge at the gates and crush each other to death. Inside and outside the school gates, it should be unnecessary to queue unless queueing is the only way of ensuring other pedestrians who need to get past the queue to get elsewhere still have the space to do so - ie to prevent obstruction of a public thoroughfare because there is no room for people milling around on it, not because a queue is necessary for human beings to navigate getting through a gate. So, if the OP expressed it more as an obstruction issue and less as someone having a weird desire to be “first through the gate,” it might make more sense to people, given that she has admitted herself there is nothing to be gained from getting through first, so a sense of entitlement to be first through is clearly unlikely to be the reason for the lady to be doing it.

And yet, the only person showing any weird desire to get through the gate first is the woman who is rushing to the front - who you seem to want to back again and again and again.

the rest of us are simply waiting our turn

Yet neither you or presumably one of the many other parents she has walked past have said anything so guess it can't be TOO much of an issue.

I don't know! The school opens the door and sends out each child. So no matter where you are in the queue, your child might be first or last. It seems pointless to queue. Just space out into the playground and step forward to collect when you see yours in the doorway.

They’re not in the playground!!! 🥴

They are once they get through the gate… So, the order of getting through the gate is equally unimportant and it is wholly unnecessary to create a long thing line of people in order to get through a gate - human beings have sufficient nouse to get through a gate without queueing in such a ridiculous way. She is simply being more efficient than everyone else, rather than wasting time standing half a mile away at the end of a line of people who think they can only get through a gate if they are standing in single file in a line so long that the people at the back probably can’t even see the gate they are queueing for. 🤣

Alternatively, the rest of you are being very silly…

I mean, fgs, the other woman is just walking through the gate and it’s the OP who has a bee in her bonnet about whose turn it is and who deserves to go first, as though this has any importance and that parents should be rewarded for turning up too early. Anyone would think the OP thinks walking through the gate is a special treat. Ignoring a long line of people doesn’t automatically mean you are doing this to “push in,” as if there is no need for something to happen in a specific order, then you aren’t so much “pushing in” as not understanding other people’s unnecessary behaviours and expectations.

I don’t believe anyone in the world is actually THIS obtuse 😂

can you explain why you think that I think I deserve to go though the gate first, when I’m actually just happy being polite and queueing - I’m not always there first so it’s not always me she rushes in front of - but fully back the actual person who does seem to think she deserves to go in front of everyone by actually demonstrating this every time she does walk to the front? Why are you SO adamant that there no need to go in first, that it’s of so little importance, yet think it’s perfectly reasonable that she seems to think there is, or else she’d wait, surely?

There must be a word, or a phrase that perfectly encapsulates the need for posters to latch onto the most benign aspect of the most innocuous of posts, and argue with the seriousness and dedication and voracity of a dog with a bone.

Well unless you ask you'll never know. Despite your protestations that there is only a sliver of room between you and the gate clearly she disagrees as she is able to put herself in that space. It may well be as I said days ago that she just thinks people are leaving inefficient gaps.

If I was her I wouldn't be bothered if people want to push past me through the gate once it was open if I'd still been able to make my point about how the queue is pointless and an inefficient use of space.

Or maybe she does really want to be first for some inevitable reason. But even if she does I still can't fathom why it bothers you when it makes no odds to how long you'll be waiting.

I work in primary but don’t get the queue thing. Our gates open 5 mins before kids come out. Parents walk in and stand outside the classroom. There is no order as such. Chn go out to where their parents are so the first parent to get their child depends on which child comes out first.

Why should she turn up on time and stand at the back of a line of people who arrived too early?

😂😂

I've rarely see a better definition of rude and entitled, it's amazing, thank you 😂

Clearly this whole thing is completely idiotic to you.

it can’t be good for you to be spending so much time on this.

OP some people think they’re more important than others End.

Sorry, late to this thread.
Has OP tried tutting?

No, but I am this close 👌🏻 to a hard stare.

Just stand where ever and head toward the gate once it’s opened. Where you are stood waiting has no bearing on anything

I don't think you care that much about going first through the gate.
You are just upset she doesn't play the same game as you do, she doesn't recognise your line as important.

Which is kind of logical - you don't know how many people really see your queue as relevant, and how many join just to not rock the boat.
If you don't put her straight soon, others might join her. It takes about three people stepping out of the line to break your precious queue for everyone.

it’s not ‘my precious queue’ 😂 I didn’t turn up on my child’s first day of school and declare to all the other parents, old and new, that this is how it’s going to be from now on.

I wouldn’t give a shiny shite if there was no queue, I’d happily go with what the majority want to do. I’m ‘baffled’ by this woman’s self importance, nothing else.

Maybe she’s not self important, just able to think outside of the box/queue