Get a Queue

For some people, the power of personal entitlement is their driving force, and it demands that lesser individuals (read me) step to the side so they can actualize their self needs and meet their goals—at my expense, if need be.

This morning I set aside for my blood work, fasting blood sugar to check my A1c, which happens every 3 months. I left the house at 7 AM to be in line when the lab opened at 7:30, and was a bit put out to realize at 7:15 that the doors don’t open until 8 AM on Saturday (6:30 AM during the week). Oh, well, I’m reading a good book, so I sat on the wall outside the lab to wait. It wasn’t long before I was joined by 3 others who also thought the lab opened at 7:30, so we talked as the lines behind us grew longer as the time crept toward 8 AM.

At about 7:55, a woman arrived with 2 boys in tow, stepped in front of me, and created a new front of the line, a brazen act indeed. I’m not sure what she processed about the more than 2 dozen individuals in the line behind me, but her step-up to the front was clearly not to be questioned.

Except, of course, by me.

“If you think you’re going to cut the line, you may want to reconsider your decision,” I told her. “All of us standing in line have been here for at least 1/2 hour, and we are not going to take kindly to your wanting to be first in the door.”

She looked at me dismissively, and said, “You don’t understand. My son here is a real bad diabetic who’s been fasting and needs his blood work done so he can go eat.”

“Really,” I said, then turned to the line and asked, “Who is a fasting diabetic waiting for blood work this morning?”

That would be almost everyone waiting in line, judging by the show of hands.

“Okay,” she said, “I get it,” and turned away to talk to her boys. She directed her sons to go to the end of the line—and then started down the line one person at a time until she was able to find the weakest link to let her take cuts. She signed in about 9th, rather than waiting her turn from the last spot in line.

It’s okay for someone else to let her into the line—but then that person should have gone to the end. That person didn’t ask all the others behind her how they felt about adding to the middle of the line, putting them back one turn. That person just assumed she would be nice and let the poor little boy get his bloodwork done—but didn’t consider the other fasting diabetic people behind her who also wouldn’t eat until their bloodwork was done.

What irritates me more, however, is that the mother’s assumption that her needs were more important than anyone else standing in line was validated not just by the person who allowed her to cut the line, but by every other person in line who also let it be okay.

I’ll stand up for myself, but if you won’t stand up for yourself, then you get what you get.

The lesson to the sons was powerful: do not let anyone tell you that you have to go to the end of the line. If you can't get to the front of the line by arriving early and waiting for the doors to open, just work the crowd: someone will let you go ahead of them if that's what you tell them to believe ...

and why would anyone willingly wait at the back of the line if they can make themselves the front of the line with so little effort?