The Queue Starts Here Please?

[Traxster]

It sometimes amuses me when the elevator I'm in stops at the ground floor and the doors open, the people waiting outside immediately move forward, all apparently, trying to be first into said lift and completely disregarding the fact that there are people trying to get out of same

Then they all look astonished when they see me and the others exiting or trying to !!.

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[tingtongtourist]

Try China. There is no queue and if you want service you'll find yourself wrestling with an 80 year old lady with sharp elbows. Even when you get to the front you need to have special blocking skills and a LOUD voice to get service.

In India, on the other hand, there is a trick available for couples. Most places with queues have a "Disabled and women only" queue (seriously). When we were in India I would get my wife, walk her in front of me to the front of that queue and then....they would deal with me because they find dealing with women almost impossible when there is a man to deal with!

I've found those nasty old ladies go down hard when you kick them behind the knee, usually step on their hands for good measure while I'm passing them, they now know the score.

As to the cashiers I ask them politely in Thai why they ignored me and let the Thai person push in, is this the official shop policy that they don't want foreigners there or just that they personally hate foreigners and don't want to serve them, where is the manger? The cashier of course just doesn't want a confronation with the Thai asshol_e so that is what I give them so they can see that letting in queue jumpers does in fact lead to that after all, only worse in spades.

Doing nothing just encourages it, being violent (except those rotten old ladies) helps nothing, I just give them what they were trying avoid. If everyone did this how long till the manager gets bored and tells them to not allow it?

Yes but doing any action could end up with further trouble for you. So many mentally challenged people with fragile ego in this kind of place and then add this with the face thing..you never know when you get some walking waste of oxygen flip his naanaa and do something really crazy.

Certainly no one would stick up for you the farang in any confrontation. Probably will have Thai manger, Thai a-hole as well as old lady joining in to beat the crap outta you!

not worth it really

[tingtongtourist]

Actually to much arrogance..like the way when you catch someone out who does lie. If you expose this lie and they cant dispute then they only get angrier, it will be YOU who is the worst of the worst, not the person who did lie.

This is why you hide the knives before you confront the lying GF

[inthepink]

Try China. There is no queue and if you want service you'll find yourself wrestling with an 80 year old lady with sharp elbows. Even when you get to the front you need to have special blocking skills and a LOUD voice to get service.

In India, on the other hand, there is a trick available for couples. Most places with queues have a "Disabled and women only" queue (seriously). When we were in India I would get my wife, walk her in front of me to the front of that queue and then....they would deal with me because they find dealing with women almost impossible when there is a man to deal with!

I've found those nasty old ladies go down hard when you kick them behind the knee, usually step on their hands for good measure while I'm passing them, they now know the score.

As to the cashiers I ask them politely in Thai why they ignored me and let the Thai person push in, is this the official shop policy that they don't want foreigners there or just that they personally hate foreigners and don't want to serve them, where is the manger? The cashier of course just doesn't want a confronation with the Thai asshol_e so that is what I give them so they can see that letting in queue jumpers does in fact lead to that after all, only worse in spades.

Doing nothing just encourages it, being violent (except those rotten old ladies) helps nothing, I just give them what they were trying avoid. If everyone did this how long till the manager gets bored and tells them to not allow it?

Yes but doing any action could end up with further trouble for you. So many mentally challenged people with fragile ego in this kind of place and then add this with the face thing..you never know when you get some walking waste of oxygen flip his naanaa and do something really crazy.

Certainly no one would stick up for you the farang in any confrontation. Probably will have Thai manger, Thai a-hole as well as old lady joining in to beat the crap outta you!

not worth it really

Mentally challenged people with fragile egos? I think you've just described the average Western expat in Thailand.

[NoshowJones]

'Pushit'

Try Nigeria

Haha,, been working there for the last 2 odd years,,

The difference with Thailand is most Thais or a high % (where we stay anyway) are respectful and do follow the queuing system,, where as in Nigeria at least you know what to do as its a free for all stampede to get to the front

Jonny

Sent from my iPhone using ThaiVisa app

Hi Jonny, I learned when I first came to Thailand, if I am at a bus stop, never bother about a queue because no one else does, just make sure you are one of the fastest and fittest when the bus comes. Other than that, in a PO or 7-11 etc, I always stop anyone who tries to get in front of me. Every queue I join, I take note who is in front of me so I can take the appropriate action if need be.

[NoshowJones]

I witnessed a 'well up' Thai guy place his stuff on the counter in front of a Russian woman down Wongamat (Narklua, Pattaya) a while back. She responded by looking at the Thai guy, looking at his stuff, picking his stuff up, looking the Thai guy right in the face as she dropped his stuff on the floor right in front of him, then turned again to the cashier as if nothing had happened.

The Thai guy looked mortified as he skulked out the shop.

The Thais might know how to Jump Queue, but it seems the Russians know how to deal with it.

Yes, well done to the Russian woman.

[lucjoker]

dont queue ,step past the others,do like them ,and noboddy will say anything,they will

think u'r important !

Aftherall the russians ,chinese,africans do it .....so at least more than half of the world ,join them !

Pussies have to wait offcourse.

This was a joke ,a serious one.

[mogoso]

Welcome to Thailand, same in Banks and other places too.

When we enter our Bank I try to be a number taking and waiting till it's called person, but when the Manager sees us we get taken care of immediately. Not my fault

[h90]

Relax, Queue jumping is a National Sport here, if it was an Olympic Sport, Thais would win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

No the competition is strong....Chinese, but also a lot non British European....Actually we Austrians are also top in it.

[Dancealot]

For my personal pastime enjoyment. I let a lot of people go in front of me whilst queuing.

And i stay very polite to someone who goes in front of me. This makes them feel very uncomfortable.

[jacktrip]

For my personal pastime enjoyment. I let a lot of people go in front of me whilst queuing.

And i stay very polite to someone who goes in front of me. This makes them feel very uncomfortable.

pfffttt...

no, it just makes you the invisible man who never gets served.

[HerbalEd]

Relax, Queue jumping is a National Sport here, if it was an Olympic Sport, Thais would win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

The Thais are rank amateurs compared to the Indians.

[HerbalEd]

Relax, Queue jumping is a National Sport here, if it was an Olympic Sport, Thais would win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Obviously you have never been to China or Hong Kong....Thailand strictly amataurs.

Agreed!

And, someone mentioned the Middle Kingdom? I've never heard of a country called the Middle Kingdom. Where, pray tell, is it?

I googled it and had the answer in less than 30 seconds ... about the same time it took you to write your question.

[farang000999]

I see many complaining about this but I have not really noticed it much. Post Offices I have been to have number queues. So do banks. The only place I can think of where this happens is when you are ordering food. Then you really just need to make sure you are heard which can be sort of intimidating at times if you are not overly confident in your Thai language and easily embarrassed.

[NanLaew]

Relax, Queue jumping is a National Sport here, if it was an Olympic Sport, Thais would win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Obviously you have never been to China or Hong Kong....Thailand strictly amataurs.

Agreed!

And, someone mentioned the Middle Kingdom? I've never heard of a country called the Middle Kingdom. Where, pray tell, is it?

I googled it and had the answer in less than 30 seconds ... about the same time it took you to write your question.

You had to google it? Seriously? In the 30 seconds it took you to google it and the minute or so it took you to let everyone know what a clever bugger you are, I made $1184.67

Back OT; I deplaned from a full 747 at BKK yesterday and it was incredible how many pushy, short-arsed old Chinese ladies manage to get from about15 rows back and onto the bus before me.... and when we get to Immigration, they haven't filled in their landing cards.

Sent from the east-end of Soi Postoffice with an Asus eePad Transformer TF201 thingumabob.

[notmyself]

I witnessed a 'well up' Thai guy place his stuff on the counter in front of a Russian woman down Wongamat (Narklua, Pattaya) a while back. She responded by looking at the Thai guy, looking at his stuff, picking his stuff up, looking the Thai guy right in the face as she dropped his stuff on the floor right in front of him, then turned again to the cashier as if nothing had happened.

The Thai guy looked mortified as he skulked out the shop.

The Thais might know how to Jump Queue, but it seems the Russians know how to deal with it.

Yes, well done to the Russian woman.

Chances are she had jumped the queue herself.

[giddyup]

I witnessed a 'well up' Thai guy place his stuff on the counter in front of a Russian woman down Wongamat (Narklua, Pattaya) a while back. She responded by looking at the Thai guy, looking at his stuff, picking his stuff up, looking the Thai guy right in the face as she dropped his stuff on the floor right in front of him, then turned again to the cashier as if nothing had happened.

The Thai guy looked mortified as he skulked out the shop.

The Thais might know how to Jump Queue, but it seems the Russians know how to deal with it.

Yes, well done to the Russian woman.

Chances are she had jumped the queue herself.

Yeah, the Russians aren't backward about queue jumping or pushing past like you don't exist.

[skorchio]

Relax, Queue jumping is a National Sport here, if it was an Olympic Sport, Thais would win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Have you been to India?

[Tanaka]

Welcome to Thailand, same in Banks and other places too.

When we enter our Bank I try to be a number taking and waiting till it's called person, but when the Manager sees us we get taken care of immediately. Not my fault

Someone mentioned expats with fragile egos.

[jonnyscot]

='farang000999' I see many complaining about this but I have not really noticed it much. Post Offices I have been to have number queues. So do banks. The only place I can think of where this happens is when you are ordering food.

we have the number system at our local post office too, but not at the desk where we go for the package collection,, The awkward part was there were 2 Thais in front of me in the queue who said nothing, I felt I made the person uncomfortable by getting their attention (along with everyone else's in the queue) and showing them that I had a package collection ticket just the same as they had just placed on the counter and then gestured them to stand with the rest of them behind me,,

trouble was the staff had already picked up their ticket and started to process it, then they give you that Thai smile,, Mai pen rai,,,

Jonny

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[spacedcowboy]

Just stood in the line at Family Mart Reggae Bar area Chaweng behind someone (me second in the line), this person, in front of me, on the phone whilst being served by cashier then decides they'd forgotten something, so wanders off to find it oblivious to me and now another person waiting to be served.

So I stand amused by this 1st person's complete lack of manners, the cashier looks at me, I look at her, then the person behind me squeezes in front of me, literally with the agility of an gymnast, I look at them in the eye, they look at me and the 1st person eventually returns pays and goes.

I look at the cashier as if to say 'are you going to serve me' who has witnessed all of this or is the queue jumper going to get served now, you guessed it the queue jumper gets served.

Just made me laugh, a real insight into my place in the Grand scheme of Thailand

Edited January 2, 2013 by spacedcowboy

[Trembly]

Last week I was at Mo-Chit, having just arrived from up country. I was standing in the queue for the taxis, with the front of the queue to the left. The taxis have to be diverted from the road into the multiple taxi ranks by whistling baton wavers so every one is forced to wait a bit in the blazing sun. These same baton wavers are also periodically yelling "board taxis to the left, board taxis to the left".

Taxi comes, middle-aged lady at the front of the queue gets in and goes. I am now the penultimate person in the queue, in front of me a tiny slip of a girl in office clothes with many bags of fresh fruit. She was almost pretty in a plain Jane way - I was checking her out from a distance earlier as I waited for my dad to quickly get something from a shop.

The wait continues for another minute or so when these two burly Isan guys with lots of boxes who were standing behind me decide that they would go and wait in front of the tiny office girl instead.

The girl and I both see this and she spins around reflexively, her eyes catch mine immediately with a plaintive look, as if to say "did you see that?". I meet her gaze but I don't say anything. Up to this point I had been chatting to my dad in English and I was still in one of those moods where I don't want to let on that I speak or understand Thai. Maybe they'll figure out that the queue starts where they were just standing, I say to my dad, but I think that they were around to hear the "board taxis to the left!" calls.

A couple of taxis swing in from the road and the girl turns around and our eyes meet again. She doesn't hold my gaze this time, as if embarrassed that she should be bothering a total stranger about her predicament, and that the total stranger could sense it.

I could feel my dad tense up next to me too but I had already decided upon a course of action and there was no time to explain. A split second later the taxi is coming for our line, the girl twitches involuntarily in our direction yet again but I pretend not to notice and as the taxi pulls in right in front of us I have already swept pass the girl and physically cut off the two Isan dudes and just stonewall them with my back.

Their noses practically touch me as I open the rear taxi door and motion the girl to get in "Choen krap! (please / be my guest)". For half a second the girl seemed a bit non-plussed, or maybe it was just the sun in her face but she said thank you and mustered a little smile. I would have smiled back out of politeness but by then the adrenalin was pumping as I was expecting confrontation and I simply forgot. Anyway, another taxi follows immediately and I turn around to the Isan guys, who are visibly annoyed but seem too embarrassed at the spectacle (in that moment I suddenly realised that everyone was watching) to acknowledge what I just did, and tell them where the queue is before opening the door and getting in without another word.

The brass neck of some people.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Trembly

[jonnyscot]

although I generally think of Thais as a very friendly and unconfrontational (dont know if thats actually a word or not?) bunch of people, the type of thing Spacedcowboy just mentioned seems surprisingly quite a common occurrence,, still I love the place and the people,,, most of them anyway,,

[spacedcowboy]

They might win the battle, but ultimately I win the war, so to speak.

I guess you could question every bodies motives in my scenario today.

The guy holding up the queue was just completely oblivious to everything except his own importance and the phone call, I'm sure however he would of felt differently if the shoe had been on the other foot, there seems to be a lot V.I.P's here.

The girl behind was just using her female charms to 'get ahead' in the queue on the Farang guy (probably works in a bar locally and used to being the centre of Farang attention etc), I've inoculated myself from this however lol. and didn't entertain anything over than a non-plus look of I'm not interested and I'm not rising to it either

The girl serving (young isn't paid for hassle, probably see's mongers day in day out) probably scared of the queue jumper she was polite when she eventually served me, but again unfortunately also got the non-plus look from me

The bate the Farang guy game had unfortunately been unsuccessfully played today

[Lancelot]

Relax, Queue jumping is a National Sport here, if it was an Olympic Sport, Thais would win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Agreed. And the locals simply don't care. But I agree its worse in China. In Bangladesh there was no pretense of a line, every man for himself

[jonnyscot]

I wouldn't disagree with you SC, but I don't think these queue jumpers generally target only farangs although on some occasions maybe,, the place I live only a handful of farang live and on the odd occasion that I do see these queue jumpers as many Thais are also the victims, however a classic last year whilst at the Thai consul in KL for my annual non imm visa, the gates opened and after everyone( mostly farang guys and ladies about 15 people) had cleared the security gate and were waiting in an orderly line for the office door to open, the wife and I were halfway up the queue, in walks a young 25 ish Thai lady,, shorts so tight up to her private area and a top on that the wife was embarrassed to think this lady was a Thai and dressing like this in another country,, walks right past everyone up to the front of the queue to wait for the door to open,, no one but myself objected to her, I said she aint no special case and should join the queue like everyone else, to which she replied that her visit was for a different issue than everyone else's, I said my piece but it wasn't really worth the hassle of getting into a full scale argument about,

[Kipperthai]

I wouldn't disagree with you SC, but I don't think these queue jumpers generally target only farangs although on some occasions maybe,, the place I live only a handful of farang live and on the odd occasion that I do see these queue jumpers as many Thais are also the victims, however a classic last year whilst at the Thai consul in KL for my annual non imm visa, the gates opened and after everyone( mostly farang guys and ladies about 15 people) had cleared the security gate and were waiting in an orderly line for the office door to open, the wife and I were halfway up the queue, in walks a young 25 ish Thai lady,, shorts so tight up to her private area and a top on that the wife was embarrassed to think this lady was a Thai and dressing like this in another country,, walks right past everyone up to the front of the queue to wait for the door to open,, no one but myself objected to her, I said she aint no special case and should join the queue like everyone else, to which she replied that her visit was for a different issue than everyone else's, I said my piece but it wasn't really worth the hassle of getting into a full scale argument about,

I thought you said this was a "Classic" You deffo had me !!

[jonnyscot]

Kipperthai,, Please do excuse my standard of english understanding,, im a Scot,,,, hehe ,, Well I don't see many of those types around where I live, but she certainly was a classic,,, not to be confused with being a "class act"

[rascalman]

Welcome to Thailand, same in Banks and other places too.

I tell the violators that there is a line here. even if it does not work !

[rott]

And, someone mentioned the Middle Kingdom? I've never heard of a country called the Middle Kingdom. Where, pray tell, is it?

http://en.wikipedia..../Names_of_China

China is called Zhōngguó in Mandarin Chinese. The first character zhōng (中) means "central" or "middle," while guó (國/国) means "state" or "states," and in modern times, "nation." .....Many Western works, however, use the translation "middle kingdom" or "central kingdom."

Yes, come along rene, buck up.