This week found me in the huge city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. On the way back, there was a strike involving the customs officials/border patrol, known in Brazil as the Federal Police. These are the guys who look at your passport and stamp it as you leave. There were only two guys looking at passports as dozens of flights left. This meant a line of, without exaggeration, 4,000 people. I stood in line, again without exaggeration, 4 hours and 10 minutes (I timed it). Luckily, I had shown up at the airport six hours early, so I was fine. Most of the flights were being held for people to get through the line, so very few people missed their flights. But it’s still no fun standing in line for hours.
Behind me in line was a group of middle aged Asian women who didn’t speak English or Portuguese. And as I got to the front of the line, we went around a curve, and a big Brazilian guy cut in line and started pretending that he had been there, with all of his Asian women friends, all along.
A bunch of much smaller Brazilians started complaining, and he basically swore at them and said he was going to stand there no matter what. He challenged them to come and force him out. Keep in mind there were no police around because they were all on strike, so this was basically “the law of the jungle.” Now, I am fairly big physically and felt I had no problem handling him in terms of temperament or even if things got ugly. Also keep in mind that this was happening behind me in line so did not affect me personally.
What would you do? What is the Christ-like thing to do?
I’ll give you some time to post answers, and then I’ll tell you what I did. (Hint: the guy did not stay there very long).
Slippery slopes aside, what’s one more person in line? The Christ-like thing to do, I think, would have been to turn the other cheek. Remembering what He said about walking with people and giving those who take your coat your cloke also, I think the right response was to leave the guy alone. Why add to such people’s list of reason life sucks? It just makes them angrier and angrier in life.
On the other hand, what he did wasn’t right. I think a Christ-like thing to do (in the sense of “let’s confuse people so that they learn from it” because it seems he was pretty fond of that too) would have been to let the little Asian ladies come stand in front of you in line.
On the other other hand, you say you’re fairly big physically and felt capable of handling him if necessary. I am tiny and so confrontation of any kind would not be my first choice. This begs an interesting question. How is the right thing to do affected by the person doing it? For you, the right thing may well have included the physical presence you project. I don’t have much of a physical presence and so the right thing for me would probably have involved a different path.
You leave out some desirable details that I need in assessing this situation. Did he have one eye not quite open all the way, while the other was open just a little too much? If so, leave him alone, he probably sustained this injury in a bar-fight, and has experience in standing his ground. Did he snarl when opposing the sucker behind him? Did they call him sir, or some other pejorative? If he snarls, leave him alone. If they call him really bad names, and he just talks, he’s probably not going to be physical.
In seriousness, though, I am a pretty big guy, too. I would probably get his attention, be a little bold and tell him he should be at the back of the line, while getting closer than he expects to his person, but not too close.
I can’t reveal how I know, but take it on good authority that the heavenly host hate line-cutters. They hate all of ’em, from high school cafeteria bullies to guys who drive fast in the turning lane and then turn back in front of you. The debate there is in how you take them down. While King David favors the ole rock-n-sling, Ammon like’s dismemberment (which he jokingly calls “dis’arm’ament”). But Brother Joseph favors the wrestling smack-down, which is probably the best way to go in this era.
Man, I already wish I could edit that comment. I meant to say not so close he could knee me in the groin.
Live not by Lies.* I think I would challenge the guy, even if it meant a tussle.
I don’t think I’d just walk over and shove him, however. I (think) I’d walk over assertively and declare: “I saw you cut in line. He/She saw you cut in line [point to a complainant]. He/She saw you cut in line [point to a different complainant, going down the line]… We all saw you cut in line. Now please take your place at the end.” Hopefully the collective disaffection would shame him into civility. Or prompt him into shoving first.
[*Live Not By Lies. A Solzhenitsyn. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/livenotbylies.html%5D
I’d figure that it’s none of my business until I noticed the little boy that he shoved down as he cut into line. On seeing that, I would trade my place in line with the person just behind the cutter, and then tell the cutter, “You cut in front of my place in line.” The cutter would draw his gun, but I would be faster. (This is a Brazilian airport, so I think guns are allowed.) Then I would ask the person who swapped places with me to trade back.
I learned early on in my mission in Brazil to be extremely careful how you deal with situations like these. Of course, I was not the towering giant that Geoff is today.
I witnessed a collision in my second area where the car nearly hit a woman and her child. Being the observant Elder, I took down the license plate number so I could report the incident to the police. My companion grabbed me and told me to run. Little did I realize that the offending driver was intent on doing bodily harm to me. Anyhow, we ran and hid in a members home for several hours. Needless to say, I was extremely cautious after that unfortunate incident.
Having said all that, today, I would intervene and challenge the man. I would first challenge him verbally, making him feel ridiculous for cutting in line in front of so many people. If that didn’t work, I would challenge him physically. I’m a lot bigger than I was on my mission and have had the benefit of working out regularly at the gym. 🙂
Very simple. You just tell the person directly in front of the bully to let the person directly behind the bully to give him cuts. Then they switch places. Then repeat until the bully is in the back of the line.
Brian D, just fyi, I’m definitely not a towering giant. 6-0. 195 pounds. But it is ALL rock hard muscle! Yeah baby. And I know karate as least as well as well as Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places.” (remember that scene when he’s in jail — oh yeah, that’s an R-rated movie that I saw before I joined the Church — never mind). But seriously, the guy was about my size, which is above average for Brazil. The other Brazilians immediately behind him in line were 5-6, 150 pounds.
That’s nothing! One time I was in brazil and I cut in front of a bunch of asians and this american guy is all
oh wait
Okay, after much careful thought, I have EXACTLY the right answer on how to get rid of the guy.
Simply approach him, and say something like “Hi! I’m Guy! What do you know about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint? Would you like to know more?” Start pulling out those ridiculous “pass-along cards,” and bearing your testimony to him.
Then watch him RUN to escape you!
Clueing in on how he said the Asian ladies didn’t speak Portuguese or English, I can imagine he told the bully that the ladies and him were part of some group that the bully would be embarrassed to be associated with, and then invited him to join them.
WWJD: The Mosaic law was really big on standing up for the powerless. Often the context of “judgment” is a thumb on the scale to requite social injustice as if the rich or those with status already have their own thumb on the social scale. What I’m saying that my tendency is to want intervene, and to mobilize those around so it’s not just my sayso.
Here’s another quandary. In Arizona, supermarkets couldn’t (can’t?) sell alcohol after a certain time. A convert in my ward there was talking about standing in line two minutes before the cutoff, when someone starts working up the checkout line asking everyone if he can checkout before them so he can complete his alcohol transaction before it was too late. My friend didn’t think twice and let him go ahead of her, ’cause it was the nice thing to do. Then she felt guilty for contributing to his consumption. We talked about it in Gospel Essentials class and talked about whether drinking was even a sin for that man; he didn’t have the modern commandment. Totally different situation because cutting in line is just rude whether or not it is a sin, just thought I’d throw it in the mix of WWJD queries.
Bang him, box him, bury him and baptize him. There is a reason we have baptism for the dead, you would be earning God’s favor!
Slightly tangential topic, the reluctance of many to ask for simple favors, especially of strangers.
I was once standing in line at an ATM machine across the street from a bus stop. I needed to withdraw some cash, then run across the street in order to catch my bus. I saw the number of people in front of me, checked my watch, and it looked like I was going to miss my bus if it were to arrive on time.
I said to the several people in line ahead of me: “Excuse me, I’m afraid I’m going to miss my bus,” pointing to the bus stop and the people waiting across the street, and asked if they minded if I went ahead of them.
They all agreed and let me in at the front of the line. I thanked them, did my transaction, and the bus approached just as I ran across the street, thankful that the bus didn’t make a liar out of me.
Sometimes, the Golden Rule can apply to the favor-asker, as much as to those of whom the favor is asked. Had a bus-rider been behind me, and in danger of missing his bus, I would have wanted him to speak up and ask the favor.
So a corollary to the Golden Rule may be: “If you would freely grant someone a certain favor if they asked, don’t be afraid to ask the same favor of others.”
OK, so here’s what I did:
I asked the guy nicely to get out of line. He screamed at me and called me names in Portuguese, mostly names commenting on my bald head. (Obviously, he hadn’t read about the children who made fun of Elisha and what happened to them). Anyway, I asked again nicely, and he yelled back even more forcefully. So, in my best megaphone voice, I announced in Spanish, Portuguese and English that there was a guy who had cut in line and asked whether the people were OK with this. Immediately, people started yelling, whistling, booing, etc. The guy tried to put a brave face on it, but the crowd was getting ugly. Finally, he left, cursing me forcefully but, ultimately, impotently. People in the crowd yelled at him until, crestfallen, he walked limply all the way to the end of the line.
I am not proud about this situation. I have no illusions that I am some kind of hero. I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think it is necessary and right to defend others, especially the defenseless like these Asian women and all the other people in the back of the line. On the other, I kind of feel like PDOE that I created some tension and contention that may not have been necessary. And of course I liked the contention, and the feeling of power I had, which, ultimately, made me feel really bad. But then I think about what would have happened if dozens of people started cutting in line. Perhaps I stopped that from happening.
Anyway, it was definitely an interesting case study in group behavior.
I have to say that if you don’t enforce line behavior, it falls apart and the chaos is terrible.
#17:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Or something.