Travel Tips: How to Wait in Line (and Keep Your Cool)
As a security officer and licensed door supervisor — or “bouncer,” as we’re sometimes known — I spend a lot of time around people waiting in line. Things mostly run smoothly, since customers these days are almost always busy scrolling.
But every now and then you get trouble: people who cut the line (or try to), or else people who simply lose their patience and vent their frustrations.
I work in England, a country whose citizens are renowned internationally for lining up respectably — or “queuing” as we call it. In 2022, the wait time to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state was over 24 hours at its peak. And there was national outrage when two TV hosts were accused of using their V.I.P. status to cut ahead. (They denied the charge.)
In light of recent worldwide travel challenges, and for any fellow Brits experiencing electronic holdups as they head stateside to catch the World Cup, here are six tips from a bouncer on how best to move safely, if slowly, forward.
Power Up and Stay Connected
Check your phone battery and power bank before lining up. That will ensure your device stays on, while also eliminating any conflict with service staff. (I’m sorry, but you really do not have the divine right to use our power supplies.)
And make sure your headphones are also charged, while you’re at it, so you don’t inflict noise pollution on those around you. I want to listen to the new Boards of Canada album as much as the next person, but what to me is profound music may be other people’s final straw — particularly if they’re tired and weighed down with bags.
Answer the Call of Nature
Whether you use an app or your eyes, locating a bathroom should be a top priority before entering a long line. Otherwise, you run the risk of abandoning the line for a comfort break and trying to reclaim your space once everyone has shuffled forward. That sounds easy enough if you have a partner guarding your position for you, but sometimes newcomers will bar your path and insist you join the back of the line.
Security can mediate where possible, but when temperatures are high and we’re administering first aid to people who’ve fainted or suffered panic attacks, we don’t have the time to produce CCTV footage in order to prove who was originally standing where.
Do. Not. Cut.
We all have our reasons for wanting to cut the line. Paying for a fast-track option or priority access, for example, increases our sense of entitlement, even over others who’ve paid the same. But in 20 years of working security, I’d estimate that less than 1 percent of the jumping-ahead incidents I’ve witnessed were justified.
And remember: Officers like me aren’t always available to prevent retaliatory violence that may occur. At a music festival attended by one of my colleagues, a gentleman was yanked out of a portable toilet because he’d cut ahead of someone.
Keep Your Distance
In jail there’s a saying: “Give me five feet.” In lines this distance is a luxury — but according to my physical intervention training, being closer than a foot and a half to someone can be perceived as threatening.
When British nightclubs were reopening after the Covid-19 pandemic, one suggestion was for security staff like me to patrol the dance floor, ensuring people didn’t boogie too close to one another. Luckily it never happened, but try to keep in mind that people ahead of you may not appreciate a stranger’s breath on their neck.
Stay Calm During Searches
At airports and elsewhere, you may sometimes be selected for a search. Please remember that the officer carrying it out isn’t on a power trip. On the contrary: We’re often as embarrassed as you are, particularly if the wand lets out a squeak over an intimate area.
Take a deep breath and keep in mind that, unless you’re directed into a private room, security usually won’t ask you to remove any garments that expose skin. We should also be changing any gloves we’re wearing between searches (or at the very least sanitizing them).
Keep It Friendly
Unless you want the line to be more memorable than the main event, please be patient if people are moving more slowly than you’d like them to.
Enjoy the trip, the meal, the amusement ride, the show. Please don’t push. And remember: You’ll get there in the end.
George Bass is the author of “What the Bouncer Saw: Life on the Front Line of the Security Business,” published by Hachette.
