Jumping the queue: Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian Weekend, 28 August 2010 Today, a true tale of heroism that takes place not in a war zone, nor a hospital, but in Victoria station in London in 2007, during a tube strike. Our hero – a transport journalist and self-described big, stocky bloke with a shaven head named Gareth Edwards, who first wrote about this experience on the community blog metafilter – is standing with other commuters in a long, snaking line for a bus, when a smartly dressed businessman blatantly cuts in line behind him. (Behind him: this detail matters.) The interloper proves immune to polite remonstration, whereupon Edwards is seized by a magnificent idea. He turns to the elderly woman standing behind the queue-jumper, and asks her if shed like to go ahead of him. She accepts, so he asks the person behind her, and the next person, and the next – until 60 or 70 people have moved ahead, Edwards and the seething queue-jumper shuffling further backwards all the time. The bus finally pulls up, and Edwards hears a shout from the front of the line. Its the elderly woman, addressing him: Young man! Do you want to go in front of me?
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 06:00:25 +0000
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