to think this woman should have waited her turn?

[Andrewofgg]

Day off yesterday; DW and I went for coffee in a department store. She got a table while I went to the counter where I had to wait perhaps three minutes for service.

At a nearby table a woman with a baby in a high chair and another woman, I think her mother.

As I am about to ask for coffee and pastries, the baby's mother walks over and asks for the baby?s food to be microwaved. Some argument follows about why they can?t do it ? that?s another issue ? while other customers and I wait.

In the end the woman behind the counter gives way and puts the food in the machine and serves me.

Since the child was not creating and was under supervision I think mother should have got in the queue. But it's a fact that some - not all - women with babies think that they are entitled to jump queues as this woman did.

AIBU?

We always send someone to sit down and another to get food if it's busy. If I'm on my own with kids I just don't go into busy places to eat. I get sandwiches from Boots/M&S/wherever and sit on a bench. You don't have to eat in a cafe, especially not a busy cafe where's there's competition for tables.

I expect the woman in the OP thought it would be a 2 second job to get something stuck in the microwave. Perhaps if she'd realised she would need to have a debate about it she would have joined the queue.

"It's my birthday" (which as a matter of fact it is) "and I'll start a hare if I want to!"

if you do that you could possible have loads of people all standing around with trays waiting for a table and then do they form a waiting for a table with tray queue to make sure they finally get seated in turn when their food is cold?

Or you could size the room up first, if there are plenty of free tables no problem. If it's busy try and reserve a table while you queue or decide it's not worth taking the chance and go to a quieter place. Why would you join a queue for food if there is a good chance you won't get to sit down?

Actually, I agree that woman in OP was rude. It is rude to push in.

However, in self service places, I stand by the don't sit down until you have your food rule - unless there are plenty of seats in which case, no problem.

I'm applying a disclaimer for disabled/SN issues

What if it's a hidden disability?

I would move if someone was standing waiting with their food. If it's busy with people eating fair enough you take your chances that someone will have finished by the time you've paid (which is usually what happens) but if it's busy because people are reserving tables and other people are having to wait with food or go elsewhere because there are no free tables then that's just annoying.

I personally wouldn't have an issue with someone pushing in front of me to get something done for a small child. I'd probably appreciate a thanks or a do you mind if? But I'm pretty sure that the small child needs feeding faster than I do. As to people filling seats before they have their food I think it is pretty rude to sit and watch someone with a tray of food have no where to sit when you know your going to be sat in a seat for the next 10 minutes, waiting whilst the person in the line for you is being served.

Yes, hidden disabilities. I knew someone would say that. How about people just extend some common courtesy where possible and if they are able to stand up because someone is waiting with food and nowhere to sit then they should do so?

To answer the OP, I think that if you have your meal and something v quick/simple needs doing then it is fine to go up to the front of the queue, especially if it's a long one. Examples might be: need a fork, forgot your change, to ask where the highchair/toilet is etc. It is never OK to interrupt someone else, that's rude.

I agree with Thisisyesterday. In places like Starbucks/Costa/Caffe Nero then the relatively quick turnaround in a busy branch relies upon people in a long queue taking a while to get to the front to get a table. I think it's incredibly rude for people at the back of a long queue to have bagged a table and leave people who have trays of food with nowhere to sit. The worst example I ever saw was actually in a National Trust restaurant, and the customers in question were incredibly and unecessarily hostile to the poor family with tiny kiddies and nowhere to sit . I am quite often in a cafe with one or more of my children and no other adult. I wouldn't contemplate leaving them or buggy/possessions over the other side of the cafe whilst I queue. If the place were deserted and there were 2 adults, then yes one might sit down with the kids (assuming they don't want to choose their own cake from the display), but not if it were busy. People who are unable to stand obviously should sit down , but shouldn't take offence if people with trays of food ask if they mind being joined.

well exoticfruits maybe you can explain how i can do that by myself with baby and children?

When I had that scenario I found a table and high chair, sorted the baby and DCs and went to the counter-anything else was impossible.
My mother is disabled, I have to find her a table.
I still do it anyway. There is no way I want to get food and nowhere to sit.
If it is too busy and I would be leaving people without I go elsewhere.
People make it sound as if you go to 'refuel', with friends we go for a chat and we want a nice table, alone. On my own, there is no one to be sociable with and so I could always find someone else on their own with a spare seat.
It is never a problem
We have these threads regularly and people that are an utter menace, queueing with DCs, bags, people who don't need to be in the queue never see it as anything but rude. I wish that everyone did it and will continue to do it. But if busy I will go elsewhere.

It's all very well to say go elsewhere, but often there isn't anywhere else and with hungry child and/or baby wanting feeding a busy cafe is sometimes still the best option.

My toddler climbs out of highchairs, so no way would I leave her unattended in one.

I stuggle to see how a mum with kids and a buggy queing for a cup of tea and a cake is an utter menace , but perhaps I have misunderstood?

They move around and are quite likely to jog people with scalding hot drinks. How can the mother hold a baby, hold a toddler and pay and carry a tray? There is generally no room for a buggy-and, in the unlikely even there is it is in the way. It is most definitely impossible to carry a tray, push a buggy and manoeuvre a toddler around a busy cafe.It is in everyone's interest to anchor them first.

So if you queued up and paid for your food, and then wanted a sachet of salt would you queue up again? I would nip to the front and ask the server between customers. Don't think there's anything wrong with that kind of thing, otherwise you'd be joining the queue to ask directions to the toilet. I would think of the queue as being for if you want to purchase something.

lol at the knees

I mean obviously not a good thing that someone would have to have 2 knees replaced but can I ask why and what's the point of having them replaced if you still can't stand for 3 minutes?

Of course the woman was BU though.

Fantastic......another thing to add to the list of things you might be to paranoid to do now you have been on MN: Sit at the table while friend/mother/other stand in queue and order food.

Madness. Stand in the queue with 3 year old and 18 month old in a pushchair while 7 months pregnant. Order. Balance hot dinks on tray. Somehow negotiate pushchair across cafe to table?

Hilarious.

Well, you?d do that and the next thing you would see would be the ?AIBU to think that the women I saw today was endangering her children by carrying a tray of hot drinks and pushing her pushchair to a table........?

my auntie is blind and sat at a table while her friend queued for food, another customer demanded she move and accused her of faking her blindness.....you'd think a guide dog would give a clue!!

Not everyone who doesn't reserve a table before ordering food has manners.

I'm not sure I agree with the 'shouldn't reserve a table before purchasing' argument.

Even if no one ever reserved a table before being served, you could still queue up, buy food and then find there's nowhere to sit. Surely it makes sense to find a seat first if you can?

YABU, I would never mind if someone wanted to get baby food heated up if they had already been served. She obviously didn't expect it to be a problem! I can't believe people would have expected her to stand in the queue again.

As for people who have a problem with others sitting at tables whilst they wait for food, just what are you talking about? The tables are there for people eating in that place, no-one has a monopoly on them. If there is a table free then use it.

Lots of people accusing each other of bad manners here, but it seems to me it's not about individual lack of courtesy so much as incompatible systems.

System 1: everybody arrives, books table, queues for food. Fair because everyone in the queue has a table allocated to them, newcomers can see whether or not they will have to wait.

System 2: everybody arrives, queues for food, then looks for available table. Fair because people who arrived first have first choice of tables.

Problems only arise when some people opt for system 1, and others for system 2... Personally, I've always been a system 2er, and have regularly been outraged by others flouting the moral code. it was only on reading this thread that it dawned on me that system 1ers don't think they're being rude, because their system is as fair as system 2 - just different.

I was that woman the OP is referring to, today in M&S cafe at one of the big out of town stores. My twins are 5 months, they're both teething, and one of them was SCREAMING intermittently. I was already flustered as when I was in the babychange room, they'd both been quiet and then suddenly DT2 roared like he'd been pinched. I know it was just his teeth but when I came out, with him still screaming, a lady stood in my way and asked me what was wrong. She didn't actually acuse me of hurting him but the inference was there, and she wouldn't let me pass until I'd explained!
I hurried off to find DH, and we headed to the cafe, so I could melt some of the little food cubes I'd brought, and soothe his gums.
The cafe was rammed so I thought I'd just get a bit of hot water, pour that over the cubes, and then head for the furniture department. (I know that's not how you're meant to defrost food, but it was only a bit of pear purée and I'd made it last night. And I know M&S aren't keen on babies being fed on their furniture displays but I was desperate!)
So I jumped the queue at the coffee bit and got a cup of hot water. DH found us a seat in the cafe, I started feeding the still roaring DT2 and he went quiet very quickly. DH ordered our food and there was peace for a while.

To everyone in Big M&S, I'm very sorry. He was screaming, I was flustered, DT1 was about to kick off as well, I thought it was for the best.

The problem with system 1 is that if you're by yourself you can't reserve a table. So really system 2 is the best way to do it.

Poor you, BagofHolly. I'm sure we would all have understood. I have to ask, though: did you apologise to the queue?!

It's just me and DS (5).

When we go out, I can't ask him to save a table, he's not old enough, so we both queue. Meanwhile all the other buggers have sent the table blocking parties ahead of us, so when we Do make it through to the seating, we have to wait.

OP, that woman was being U. You, however need to speak up and say Excuse me, I was being served, you will have to wait your turn' Every. time.

No reason on earth people should bulldoze their way through basic manners.

Oops BagofHolly...screaming child is another matter entirely.

OP said the child was not creating at all, you have DT, screaming ones
you are forgiven. Hell, if you waited your turn, the entire queue would have insisted you jump it!

Hester, I did indeed, profusely, humbly and loudly! I kept saying "sorry, so sorry, he's teething, so sorry!" And all the time I wanted to shout "I haven't hurt him, it's his teeth, he needs something cool on his gums! I'm normal! I'm just knackered and flustered and that woman in the changing room just upset me and if he doesn't stop screaming you all might think I've hurt him too but I didn't!" But I was all Stiff Upper Lip and kept it simple.
To be honest, I think everyone was just thinking "shut him up!"

He was still ROARING when I sat down next to two older ladies. I apologised to them too, for ruining their lunch with my screamers and they said not to be silly, they were grannies and they understood. Phew.