Read the passage paying attention to the words in bold and match the parts of sentences:“I was queueing at the Greek Festival to get some tickets and suddenly
this young lady comes out of nowhere and started talking to the woman in front
of me,” said 63-year-old Jacintha. “Then, right in front of my eyes, she
stepped into the line and bought her tickets! All this while she had been
maintaining that conversation just so that she could sneak in. I can’t believe
people these days,” Jacintha said. “That was not only rude, that was annoying!”
Jacintha isn’t the only one frustrated with society’s general level of
etiquette. Carol, who is a retiree, spends most of her time at the malls and
incidentally always has bad experiences with tourists and their inconsiderate behavior.
“I don’t understand why these tourists just don’t line up. And the worse thing is, even when they line up, they stand
so close to you that they start pushing
you forward. They can even push you
to get past people. I don’t know why pushing is necessary,” Carol said.
Some people choose to call them out on their behaviour but others prefer
to not confront strangers and tell them
what to do, fearing that a bigger problem could arise from that
interaction. So should we say something or let it be?
According to Lifehacker, if you do choose to say something, there is a
way to do it so that your good intentions don’t backfire. When you confront the
line cutter, be polite. It is possible that they could have made a mistake and
you don’t want to overreact to something that’s ultimately not a big deal. A simple sentence like, “Excuse me, but I believe you just cut in line”
is forceful enough to get your point across while still remaining open to the
possibility that you could be wrong and they were simply joining their friend
to wait with them in solidarity.
However, the important thing to remember is that while it’s rude for
people to cut in line, you can’t fight every battle. Most of the time, it’s
simply not worth fighting. Stay strong, and just try to let things go whenever
you can.