Did I cut in line?

[Jinglybangly]

I was in a shop today, two tills open. Till 3 had 2 people queuing, till 4 had 1 person queuing. So naturally I go to till 4 to queue. Person at the back of till 3 queue says " excuse me there's a queue" I said "I'm joining this queue, not your queue" she says "there is just one queue" I said well go in front of me then and she did.

I go to this shop a lot and people always just join the queue that is shortest and there is a queue for each till.

AIBU that when there are multiple tills there are multiple queues, or is there only 1 queue and everyone should join it.

yanbu obviously each till has a queue

yabu Of course there is only 1 queue

One queue, it's fairer.

If it’s a wee shop with just one counter then it’s just one queue and you separate at the point of going to the till. Otherwise two separate queues.

YANBU. Two separate tills equals Two Q's

Depends really if they're just tills or if they're checkouts like in a supermarket. Obviously if it's checkouts then there's different queues for each till but if it's just a couple of tills at one counter then there's usually one line

Two pay desks, two queues in my book!

It's a big shop. 6 Tills when they are all open. If there was only 1 till when it was busy the queue would go up an aisle and block people looking at stuff on the shelves.

If there is room for 2 queues then there’s a queue for each till

Sometimes it depends who's queueing. Maybe it's usually one queue for each till, but someone queueing today decided it made more sense for there just to be one queue.

Like supermarket checkouts. Not like in a little co-op where there is one obvious queue and you go to the next available person.

Usually in a supermarket there is a separate queue for each till. So you’d be right in that instance.

For a lot of things in life there is one queue, which is fairer because the person who got there first gets served first. But supermarkets are usually an exception because of the way the tills are laid out.

It was a big garden centre, each till has a conveyor belt like a supermarket,

If they are supermarket-type checkouts then it's definitely separate queues.

It sounds like the sort of situation where I would expect separate queues. Supermarket style checkouts with conveyor belts invariably work this way in my experience.

That said, the self checkouts even in large supermarkets are often gathered in one area with a single shared queue.

I think the different options depend not just on the sizes of the tills but also the space the people in the queue need. Checkouts with conveyor belts tend to go along with customers with trolleys: difficult and slow to manoeuvre and needing lots of space.

Like b&q or ikea? Yeah you choose ur queue same as in a large supermarket. Yanbu