The Unlearned Art of Standing in Line
When you've raised not to do as the Romans do
Greetings, everyone
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More than ten years of waiting in lines have done little to teach Venezuelans to stand one behind the other. Lines here seem to mean "stand whereever and however you want" and let anyone you want to cut in.
I waited in this "line" yesterday. This was outside a deli store and it took me almost 2 hours to get out of there with a pound of cheese. There were two more lines inside. One to order and another one to pay. You can easily buy a perfectly fresh carton of milk and find out it expired by the time you get home.
I tried to remain as aligned as posible to the line that was supposed to guarantee some sense of order, but everybody else seemed confortable spread all over and they were, as always happens to me at banks, public offices and supermarkets, rather agressive when I suggested that the line was a bit crooked.
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I even heard someone say the word Asperger and special. That's what you get here if you want to straighten thing up. But, as the saying goes, as the twig in bent, so grows tree.
I wish this were an act of rebellion agains so many humiliating lines, but what I have perceived here is an inability to be practical and orderly, an inclination towards chaos and disarray, a resistance to change and improvement. It is not only politics that is going horribly wrong in Venezuela.
Thanks for your visit
My photographs, modified at fortoram.io
A straight line means that it'll go around the block but if it's straddled it'll fit in a third the length. Cutting in line is another thing entirely, and obviously if people don't have a problem with it you are barking up the wrong tree, and as you know, peer pressure means that if people want to have a straddled que and you don't commenting on it will be completely futile. There's also the option of not giving a fuck and mean mugging everyone who gives you the eyeroll, or better yet, you can mock/ridicule them, lol.
Well, obviously at some point the line has to bend or turn to adapt to the area, but we are talking here about the mere inability to stay one behind the other. It's more like one next to the other. The irony regarding cutting in line is that those who allow it, and even encourage it, are the ones that complain the louder if you do it. It's a sea of contradictions what you witness in these lines.
In some ATMs, for instance, if the line goes straight facing the ATM it blocks the sidewalk after the 3rd customer. I have been able to persuade people to turn after the first one and stay parallel to the wall that way pedestrians may still use the sidewalk. It is not always futile and I think that it can be fixed, but because many decide not to give a fuck it keeps happening.
In these situations I would lead by example, I see it as futile because I'm not the persuasive type, or I should say, I'd rather ridicule than try and persuade another way.
Of course. That's the idea and I understand that you have to have the stomach to do certain things. I can't sell stuff, especially of dubiois quality and I can't do politics, with all the murky negotiations behind curtains.