Sunday, July 20, 2008

Why do people cut lines:

One of our colleagues who is from Hongkong and has spent a lot of time in the US is also in the India office for a one year assignment. Because of him we have started noticing that people cut lines a lot. Every single day that he has been here some one cuts the line he is standing in when we are at the cafeteria. He gets very pissed off and yells at the person. That started a discussion on this topic. Here are some of the reasons that came out:

  • People don’t value and respect others’ time.
  • This is a cultural problem in India
  • There is a lack of resources in India and hence people have to fight for everything.
  • A lot of people that work in the professional environment come from a background where they don’t have exposure to the so called “civilized” way of life. So these habits still remain with them no matter where they go
  • Everyone likes to do a little bit of mischief and break the rules once a while.
  • The fittest will survive is true in South Asian countries which leads to this kind of behaviour.

I would love to see more reasons here in the discussion forum.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So I was in this line (for food) at India's Independence Day celebration in Los Angeles today, and here was this young college guy in front of me. Slowly one friend joined him, then another and then another. And as the queue moved ahead - well I never did, as one by one more than ten of these folks joined in.
No one really 'cut' the line, but there is this another angle to cutting lines - when family members join in with a degree of legitimacy (we all do it one time or another). For this guy probably his whole gang was his family.

Anjali said...

I think, they cut lines because they dont know where that line is.
We also R2I-ed about 9 months back. Its nice to read your blog.