to have asked these people to sit somewhere else?

[musicposy]

I honestly don't know if I was or not, so any opinions welcomed, and I will suck it up if I was

I work for a music examining board and we are at the time when I have to collate all the exam entries. It's part time, seasonal work, but when it comes in, it is hours of work to a very tight deadline.

I took the DDs up ice skating this morning. The really needed not to miss it as DD2 has a couple of competitions coming up. But I really needed to work. So I sat in the leisure centre coffee shop with a coffee at a big table, spread out all my paperwork and got on with it. It was pretty early morning so the place was virtually deserted, masses of empty tables and just a handful of other people there.

Halfway through some complicated adding up (it's literally thousands of numbers) a lady came and sat at my table, opposite me. I thought it was strange because mine was one of the only occupied tables and most people choose a vacant one. She kept making sniffing and sighing noises. Under normal circumstances I might have smiled or asked if she was OK, but I was trying to get this work done.

After a while she got up, got a drink of water, sat down, shuffled some of my papers over and put the drink down. She started the noises again, trying to get my attention, I think, and I did start to think at this point that she might have some sort of special needs, though you wouldn't have known looking at her. I just completely lost concentration in my adding.

About 5 minutes later a man who obviously had Downs Syndrome came over with a coffee on a tray. He said a cheery hello to me and proceeded to also sit down, putting the tray on my paperwork.

At this point I said very nicely "I'm really sorry, but would it be OK if you sat at a different table? I am really very busy."

They looked terribly hurt and got up. A lady a few tables over I then noticed was obviously looking after a whole group of people with learning difficulties. She said "sit here, you're welcome at this table, " and glared at me like you wouldn't believe. Then she sat and shot me looks for the next half hour.

I felt rotten afterwards. I know that in a different cicumstance that could be me or a family member. I really hadn't meant to upset them. But on the other hand, I was at one of the only occupied tables, I asked very nicely, and I didn't think it was unreasonable to expect to be left in peace when the place was so quiet.

So, was I being unreasonable? Did I deserve the glares?

I thought loads of people used coffee shops as their offices these days. I'm surprised that anyone thinks this is odd.
I regularly see groups of sales people having their team meetings before heading off in their cars for a day of touring around. I think a lot of businesses no longer provide 'office' space for mobile workers, it's cheaper for them to use a public venue when they need it (I did feel sorry for the poor lad who was getting his annual appraisal in Costa though).
The Starbucks near my old office had a basement seating area which was full of people on their laptops using it as on office. They obviously spent the whole day there, judging by the volume of paperwork and the piles of empty coffee mugs.
At my local leisure centre, the staff use the coffee shop for their meetings (with their dinky little matching corporate laptops).

Weird, pestering, people, I mean how dare they try and engage another person in a conversation! Shocking behaviour isn't it
They weren't bugging her, she was sitting in a public place, at a table and someone came and say down. OP assumes she was trying to get her attention, heaven forbid someone might like to reach out to someone and talk.
And as for carers making sure they don't make a pita of themselves, it's not always a good idea to step in, they are people first not their disability, they were not pouring coffee over her FGS!

YANBU.

And I have a sneaking suspicion the was cat'sarsing at you because she was hoping you'd entertain her charges for her for free, whilst she drank her coffee in peace.

I had a similar experience on a train once. I was sitting in one of a 'four' of seats when a youngish man with learning disabilities came and sat opposite me. He soon started singing a few lines of a song over and over and stamping his feet. This soon became very irritating, and then pretty unbearable. The train was quite busy, and it was a fair distance between stops, so it would have been obvious that I was moving away from the man if I had swapped seats. Instead, I said to him with a smile and a friendly tone of voice that I could tell that he was feeling very happy and enjoying singing, but that I had a headache and would appreciate a bit of peace and quiet. His response "Oh yes, I am not behaving appropriately am I". I chatted with him about where he was going for a couple of minutes before managing to tail the conversation off.

When I got up to leave the train, a woman sitting a few seats away from me stopped me and thanked me for dealing with the situation sensitively. She explained that she was the man's support worker and was deliberately sitting a little way from him so that he could practice independent social skills. She said that having a stranger ask him to moderate his behaviour would have helped him learn how other people might be feeling in relation to his behaviour.

I suppose some people on this thread would say that I should have said nothing and should just have put up with his behaviour, but the issue is that we do have social rules that make other people feel comfortable if we stick to them. The man's supporters obviously considered that he was capable of learning these rules. Surely it is better that someone point out to him in a polite and friendly way that he was making others uncomfortable so he had the chance to modify his behaviour, rather than have someone who would 'tell' him this with anger and aggression?

OP, I think YANBU. Maybe you could have taken a few minutes to explain to them why it was you wanted to be left alone but I don't think it was unreasonable to expect to have a table to yourself and I would have seen it as more rude if you had got up and move yourself.

Oh lots of people do piprabbit but I have never been able to make it work. There is just too much going on for me to concentrate properly and I always feel like I am hogging too much space, so am shuffling over etc.

Coffee shops good for (informal) meetings but I would try to get anything important done there.

"she was hoping you'd entertain her charges for her for free, whilst she drank her coffee in peace"

That's exactly what she wanted, all support workers sit and drink coffee hoping members of the public will engage service users so they don't have to. Makes work so much easier! Are you serious?

Oh, and the leisure centre coffee shop after school is usually full of mothers supervising homework with one set of children, while another set go to their swimming classes etc. Would it be OK if I joined them at their table and expected them to reach out and talk to me?

piprabbit - lots of people do, but if you are doing the type of work that doesn't lend itself to a public space because it requires lots of concentration then YABU to get irritated if your work is interrupted.

My work at the moment can only be done if it's very quiet. IWBVU if I went to a cafe and told people not to talk so loudly next to me or something, or even if I just became irritated by them doing so. In the past I have worked on things that could easily be done in public because they're not confidential or affected by noise or interruptions.

I bet most people with their laptops in coffee shops are just on facebook or something.

Yes I take my two to a coffee shop and fob them off on the old dears next to me shame I don't get paid at all

thepeoplesprincess I think that has to be one of the stupidest comments I've read on facebook.

Why would her 'charges' need 'entertaining'?

Piprabbit give it a try, they might enjoy the break

Not facebook, mumsnet. Obviously.

Right I'm off to bed before the red mist descends.

they would need entertaining because they're like children don't you know!

I quite often chat to people on the tables around me at the local cafe. Probably more often than not. Sometimes they start the conversation, sometimes I do. About 80% of the time I have ds1 with me.

saintly stop pestering people!

well exactly slowestwildebeast. Lets hope the carer had some colouring books with her

Don't forget weird too

ha ha - even worse I usually have the dog with me (it's an outside cafe). He pesters, we pester. DS1 once sniffed an old lady's sandwich, (obviously I told him not to) but she laughed and laughed like he'd made her year. :nice old lady:

"They weren't bugging her"
lisa The first lady was bugging me, though, she was shuffling my paperwork around. I'm not saying that was her fault, but she wasn't just sitting there. And our social rules are such that you don't go and start interfering with someone else's stuff. They didn't understand the social rules, that I accept, but the carer would have done. Although I realise she may not have seen.

Thistledew that's a really interesting post.

I think you can presume that had the carer seen she would have told her to stop. Unless you think she was setting out deliberately to annoy you!

Beyond bad manners? Really. Wow.

ah next time I see someone working I'm going to sit at their table, and clear the paperwork in one fine swoop.

Anyway, thanks for all the posts, however diverse.

I must go to bed, I am back up there at 6.30 tomorrow morning.

Maybe with a magazine

I agree with thistledew - i think you acted sensitively and with tact.

You weren't angry or aggressive and maybe the people will learn that when there are free tables to sit at one and not plonk themselves down on top of someone else's belongings. Learning about personal space and boundaries is very important for us all.

If the carer was doing her job, she would have guided them to a table of their own, having seen OP was busy. It's not rocket science.

Hope you got your work done!