to think if you want to work in silence, don't go to a coffee shop

[whimsicalname]

I was in a chain coffee shop this morning, across the road from our city museum, waiting with my 2 year old for it to open.

I was drinking my coffee, he sat opposite me eating raisins. Other people were working, or chatting, or reading the paper. You know, doing normal coffee shop stuff.

After a while, the boy gets up to wander around. He's not running, he's not sticky, he's just mingling. He walked towards a man with a laptop. Stood nearby him, and then said hello. Man looked up at me, and said 'do you mind, I'm concentrating here' in a really unpleasant way.

If I'd been with a couple of friends chatting we'd have made a lot more noise but I can't help but feel he probably wouldn't have told us off!

We were across the road from the university library (which has some open access areas) and all of 200m away from the city central library, so plenty of options for quiet. Blimey, he could even have sat in the cathedral for some quiet contemplation.

AIBU or was he?

I'm going with takingiteasy! I shall stare intently at people and then announce I have a nose full of bogies and ask if they want to see.

I quite agree domesticgodless!

takingiteasy, can I come?

(My tractor is blue, by the way, and Mummy drinked a glass of special grown-up juice when we were eating our lunches).

"Man looked up at me, and said 'do you mind, I'm concentrating here' in a really unpleasant way."
Maybe he did, PrincessTamTam. The "in a really unpleasant way." is purely subjective, he could have said it mildly, confusedly, distractedly etc. Given that the OP has, on my reading anyway, not accepted that she was BU, I'm not putting too much store in him having said it unpleasantly.

"I wasn't expecting him to entertain my child. I was expecting him not to be rude."
I rather think she was expecting him to entertain him, i.e. engage in conversation.

Tssk! "boring toddler" indeed! Charming! If we only did what we were ^obliged^ to do, I imagine the world would be filled with joyless and lonely people.
Your toddler sounds lovely, but the I dont need a genetic link to like children

"Man looked up at me, and said 'do you mind, I'm concentrating here' in a really unpleasant way."

How is that not rude, Pictish

Domesticgodless, Joe Public has the right to not want to interact with a toddler. I don't get your elderly people etc etc comment. The bloke simply did not want to interact. His prerogative, but unfortunately some of you think your offspring out trumps his choice to be undisturbed in a coffee shop.

Its sounds like he was a little curt. It's not the end of the world.

It hardly counts as rude - it's just a response from a busy person who wanted a little time on his own. Even in a coffee shop, this isn't at all unreasonable - esp as the OP points out, they were upstairs where it was relatively calm and quiet.

All you folk thinking this is the height of rudeness make me wonder if you are the types who tut and proclaim RUDE RUDE RUDE just because something doesn't go quite how you want it to or expect!

domesticgoddes, I am going to request a "like" button in FB style just for your post!

What domestic said and HipHop I read little curt as little cunt

HipHop, I genuinely read your first line as 'he was a little cunt.'

Wasn't sure if you meant the toddler or the man.

whew!

I have a two year old. She is adorable. In fact she is the most adorable two year old ever to exist. However, I am aware that not everyone agrees with me even though I am obviously right so when we go out (which we do a lot) I make sure I take enough toys, books and games to entertain an entire nursery class for several days.

If I think it is safe I let her go for a wander round although one of us always stays with her to ensure that she doesn't get in anybody's way or cause a hazard. If someone smiles at us or says something to me then I say to dd "do you want to go and say hello". If she does then we go and chat for a couple of minutes. And then we leave the person in peace with me saying "now we should let the nice lady get on with her drink - say "lovely to meet you dd"". If they don't smile at us or comment then we assume that they are busy and leave them to it.

No-one has ever responded negatively to us and more importantly dd is starting to learn important social cues that will make her life so much easier as an adult.

you ladies wanna get your eyes checked!!!

x-post, Mama!

He was sitting there with a laptop engrossed in what ever he was doing, toddler walks up stares at him and then says hello, surely if you was paying attention at the point he began staring you would have taken your son back to your table, noting that someone who is engrossed in their laptop did not want to be disturbed. Or does laptop man need to sit there with a large flashing neon sign stating the bleeding obvious.

LadyClarice - I did exactly the same. MN is getting to us!

Most of the chain coffee shops have now become extensions of the office place. It's encouraged and supported - free wifi etc.

What you want with a toddler is an old fashioned tea shop or a cafe :)

HipHop0tomus. I too just misread and snorted tea through my nose. Esp Flashbacks to the 'twat' thread... Gave me quite a start, I can tell you

one comes to expect swearing on here!

Damsel, no one is saying that said bloke needed to engage in deep conversation about red cars or whatever with OP's toddler. He had no obligation to even reply to him. That would not have been rude as the toddler would have wandered off. What is rude is his obvious sneering declaration (agreed to shamefully by all your lot) that OP was inconveniencing him by allowing her ghastly offspring to approach his table and (gasp) SPEAK.

Toddlers talk, pn the whole and are developing social awareness. Strangely, at 2 years old many of them lack this. Adults, on the other hand, should possess it, and this should include tolerance for those who do not possess the same level of it (even though by the evidence of this thread most of them no longer do).

I think that adults who don't understand this probably should simply keep away from places where children may be lying in wait attempting to aggressively converse with them. Or just focus as hard as you damn well can on your beloved laptop, and start typing extra loud and fast in an attempt to avoid the dreadful assault of the ogreous toddler. Easy.

Elderly people and those with learning disabilities also often start impromptu conversations in public (damn their eyes!!!). So do drunk adults and other usually male adults who are trying to pull or get attention. Oddly, I have never seen an adult who does this be treated with the same hissing disgust as a child- and the sinful mother who has ALLOWED HER CHILD TO WALK AROUND A COFFEE SHOP WITHOUT A GAG. I say house arrest for the lot of them...and those elderly and disabled chatterboxes too....adult space and concentration are more important than common courtesy, after all! :D

Yeah well...he bloody well did ruin our precious once a year break away from being responsible for little children. Or rather, his parents did.

I made it clear that we were there to sleep, wander about at our own will, sleep some more, wander about a bit more and then lie staring at the tent ceiling if that's what we felt like doing. We vocalised clearly the reason we had left our younger two behind.

We also made it clear that our tent was not the 'play tent' for the kids to be rampaging in and out of, as has happened on previous years when we did not pluck up the courage to put a stop to it. We were not the only ones in our group to make this clear either.

We even put up a spare tent purely for the kids to play in too.

Obviously my friend did not think that this applied to her little darling, what with him being so especially adorable and sociable. She was wrong though.

So it's 'piss off kid' with a healthy dose of 'don't come back' as well. Not that I said that of course...but it's how we all felt. And I think that's perfectly ok.

I am sorry, but I really think the man was clearly being rude, not just curt but rude and it upset the OP. There's no need for it.

That said, maybe he was just having a bad day and its perhaps not worth the OP stressing over.

I think it's WELL gross when I see children coughing, those big nasty phlegmy coughs they get when they're little, without covering their mouths. I would look in horror at the parents then.