AIBU to wonder if queuing is a British thing, what on earth do the rest of the world do??

[RubyCav]

I have heard quite a few people state "queuing is a British thing". So what I really can't work out is, how general life would work without people forming nice orderly ques. So I'm turning to mumsnet wisdom to help me understand.

I thought that this holiday to Egypt was going to be less 'fraught' than previous trips due to the lack of Russian and their 'no queuing' mentality. But no, it seems that the Egyptians are just as bad, if not worse!

The Brits and Dutch are currently seething masses of resentment and 'ignorance' 'entitlement' 'rudeness' seem to be the main topics of conversation of an evening

DH is curling up in a ball of fury and I am doing a good line in "I don't THINK so", "Well EXCUSE me" and "don't you even THINK of serving her before me"

(Two days ago there was an 'international gala dinner' for all us foreigners. It was bliss. Tidy queues, plenty of choice, no-one grabbing whole platters from the buffet. I could have stayed there forever!

When you enter a Spanish bank you just "who's last?" then sit down. Bliss.

Italian queueing is fabulous - it felt great to throw off my boring British sense of order andetails proper mess an just barge straight in very refreshing!

My introduction to Egypt was the passport checking "queue". Essentially a scrum of people jostling to be first. Strongest prevail sadly. Vile place.

British queuing is a myth. Anybody who's boarded a budget airline flight (where most or all people are Brits) will abandon any romantic notions about British orderly queues in a millisecond.

I live in a retirement area. So many elderly people (all British) here feel that queueing doesn't apply to them. Swan into the pharmacy , ignore everyone else, jump the queue, nobody says anything, get served, great! Got away with it, will do it again.

Bizarrely enough many other nations are familiar with the whole concept of queueing shops function, planes are boarded etc every day without people's heads exploding with bafflement.

There is no sense of British queuing on rail platforms. As soon as the train stops an unseemly gaggle of people clusters around each door and there is lots of pushing in. When I was younger I was taught, and observed everyone else also following, that people who want to board always stand well back at first to allow people who are getting off the train a clear passage away from the train. This is no longer observed and leaving a train requires fighting your way through a rude crowd who are more focused on getting to the door themselves (despite there still being a stream of people exiting) rather than being considerate. Once boarding can commence there is no logic to who boards first and no one pays any attention to whether someone else might be allowed to go ahead. It's a depressing indication of selfishness.

We travel to Florida every few years and most nationalities have a scam going in the parks.

A child comes walking up the queue shouting for their parents and everyone lets them past. Then they just stand still near the front, then an adult shouting a name comes through. Since everyone assumes they lost their kid, they let them through. Then before you know it a group of 20 people appear in front of you. All in dribs and drabs.

Last time when the first adult arrived I gave them a very clear 'no' when they parked next to the child in front of me and both father and son scuttled back down the queue. But they were doing a a kind of embarrassed laugh. They tried, they got caught, they accepted that I wasn't having it.

I haven't seen a British family do it. Not saying it doesn't happen, I just haven't seen it and I have been going for over twenty years.

Yes that scam davos just returned from hols where similar operated. However it was children going to stand with their friends at the beginning of the queue. I argued with one such teenager, there was no way he was pushing in. In my best teacherly authoritarian voice. He gave up. He knew he was not going to win.

I'm in New Zealand. Here we queue for things like the post office, supermarket checkout etc, but would generally not queue for something like the bus. I don't think people are generally that bothered by the lack of queue, I pretty much always get a seat anyway and will happily let anyone who looks like they really need a seat (eg. elderly) get on before me.

Having said that I think there are nowhere near as many people on our buses here in Auckland as I remember there being when I lived in London, so maybe fewer people = less of a need to queue?

Germans queue, despite their reputation. They're also generally not bad at letting people exit the train before getting on. In bakeries it looks shambolic but the staff usually know who's next and pushing in is Frowned Upon.

The exception is when another checkout is opened. Then it's first come first served and queue jumping is entirely legitimate as people from the back of the long queue rush to the front. After a few times of this I decided that if I couldn't beat 'em, I'd better join 'em.

I hate waiting to be served at a busy bar in England. You have to edge your way forward trying to get passed the drinkers who have been served but are just standing there chatting to their mates. Once at the bar you have to wave a note or your purse to show the bar person you are waiting all the while trying desperately to make eye contact with them. Meanwhile people are coming up on your left and right also doing exactly the same😀
I do try and be fair and point the server to someone who was before me though.

I'll never forget a throng in Japanese tourists coming to buy ice creams from me - I worked in an ice cream van. They all (approx 20) waved notes at me, held fingers up for number of ice creams and shouted (think old school stock market stereotype) until they got their ice creams.

Not sure if this is how things usually work in Japan though.

In many European countries you just kind of loosely queue with various degrees of success.

I'll never forget a throng in Japanese tourists coming to buy ice creams from me - I worked in an ice cream van. They all (approx 20) waved notes at me, held fingers up for number of ice creams and shouted (think old school stock market stereotype) until they got their ice creams.

Not sure if this is how things usually work in Japan though.

In many European countries you just kind of loosely queue with various degrees of success.

Ha h, no they don't.

I take it you've never gone toe to toe with a group of Chinese tourists when waiting in line for the Empire State Building? My DSM lost the plot with them and went BALISTIC. Was fantastic!

I've seen bus queues in Scotland where people were so committed to the straight line queue they stood out in the rain rather than under the bus shelter. Even more strange was many different buses stopped there so they weren't even queuing for the same bus.

We are much more relaxed re buses in London.

Bus queues in Birmingham start out reasonably orderly, apart from the people who are in the bus shelter sitting down who don't seem to have any interest in getting in a bus. As soon as the bus comes it's chaos and every woman/man/child/small furry animal for themselves!

In Moldova if you're in a queuing situation (doctors, bank etc) you rock up and ask the room 'who is last'. It breaks down slightly when people use the system to hold space in multiple queues and the penultimate person has to try and describe the last person so you know who you're behind.

Skiing in France and Italy involves a scrum for lifts where people shuffle their skis into any available cm of space till everyone gets on. It does sort of work but it's stressful.

Skiing in Scotland everybody queues in a line which becomes ridiculous on busy days as it snakes all the way back up the slope you skied down!!

The worst I have ever seen were the Russian guests at a resort in Egypt. It was actually appalling, the queue for the pancakes at breakfast for example, my OH was at the front and as he held his plate out for the chef to flip his pancake on, a Russian man actually put his plate over the top and held it there, brazen as you like. This kind of thing happened consistently for the 2 weeks we were there, so sadly not a one off rude pig.

I love queueing. I actually think it's the best thing about being British. I feel on edge in places where they don't. Once my train was delayed at Victoria and i was in the queue for the cash points - one q in the middle and filtering off to 3 machines when one became free. All lovely. Then someone came up, pretended they hadn't seen the enormous q in the middle and just stood straight behind someone at the individual ATM. I immediately said 'excuse me the q is here' and they said oh and sheepishly joined the back. Then for 2 hours i sat by the q doing that. it was one of the best 2 hrs i've ever had. Queue enforcer is my dream job.

As for Italians, ahem, yes they are by far the worst/best queuers i have ever encountered. Once in Milan at 8 months pregnant, midday in August (it was very hot) i was stood waiting by a drinking fountain. There was one person in front and as he moved i went forward to drink and someone barged in sideways. I was horrified, but waited patiently. It happened about 20 times. I thought i was going to faint but still stood waiting/fuming. Eventually a man asked me (in an italian accent) 'are you English' and i said ummm yes, and he shouted something at the scrum of people and they all laughed and stepped back and let me drink while they looked on shaking their heads and laughing. I gathered up all my dignity and waddled off in a sweaty mess.

I was also going to say skiing in Italy is interesting Museumum. Compared to skiing in Canada, which is bliss.

I once went on a tour of the Nile towns in Egypt. Our guide had an interesting approach to the (quite orderly) queues for tickets at various historic sites. He used to wander about a bit looking anywhere but at the queue, then when people had got used to seeing him he sort of ... Merged with the front of the queue. Impressive to watch.

Izzabella I worked in bars for many years - IME you are MORE likely to be ignored in a British bar if you wave a note at the bar person - the them it's the height of rudeness

In Spain when you arrive at a queue you ask who is last and then when the next person comes you say that you are the last and so on. Then you can sit down wherever you wish until your turn comes up.

Many places use the "take a ticket" system too. I think because it's hot and people want to wait in shade / sitting down rather than having to save their place physically in a queue.

When we queue to get on the aeroplane we leave our bags in a line like the Bangkok shoe line.

*Greeks are actually so bad at queueing that all banks and public offices have take a number machines. Although you still get people ignoring it claiming they are too old/late/important to wait. The supermarkets are chaos.

One good thing is that pregnant women and those with young children are always sent straight to the front. We take dd everywhere*

Was literally coming online to say this exact thing. Have a child and you're golden, everyone else can get to buggery.