Wibu about this "seat saving" incident in the Michelin starred restaurant that is...

[IHaveNoShameLeft]

McDonalds. (Apologies for the thread title!)

Have name changed incase I was being unreasonable, so here goes:

I went to McDonald's yesterday with dd aged 5. I NEVER go in there on a Saturday, but she's recently started school so decided to treat her with a quick lunch and day in town.

We took our order upstairs and found that it was chockablock. I walked further in and found one small empty stool seat for dd and she sat down. There was a woman waiting at the table without any food and she told me she was saving the seats for friends. I told her I was only putting dd down to eat. She was getting more and more aggravated by dd sitting there.

Suddenly she tapped me on my arm and told me seats were empty behind me. I wanted to leave dd there as I couldn't be arsed to move again, but seeing as this idiot was about to suffer a heart attack for us taking her friends space I picked up Dd and put her down on the empty seat.

I had just put her down and was about to sit down myself when a woman jumped out of nowhere and declared she was saving the seat for someone and that we couldn't sit there. I looked at her. No food in her hands. I replied loudly (so other woman heard me too) that you can't save seats for people when you have no food. There are others who have paid and have food to eat. She got angry and started shouting at me about why I hadn't moved other people. I looked at her and said loudly, "you can't save seats for people that aren't here. Show me any rules about seat saving and I'll move". I sat down and started eating. She stood and stared at me (trying to intimidate me) for about 3 mins, during which time no one had come up with her food. She then huffed loudly and walked off.

Now, normally I would have not even imagined doing something like this. But I feel I've grown up a lot and am becoming less and less caring about what people will think of me. I told DH, and he agrees with what I did. I had food to eat and the seats were empty. I had already been forced to move by another woman, and I wasn't going to start moving around the whole place with a child.

So wibu?

Good on you!! YWNBU

I'm sort of on the fence about this so that's another seat for someone else l can see both sides. l mean no-one wants to buy food and then find there is nowhere to sit or waste so much time looking for somewhere foods gone cold. But on the other hand l can see it from the OPs pov.
What l dont agree with is having one rule for people with kids and one for the rest of us. l get fed up of todays 'hand that rocks the cradle mentality' as l call it , that somehow people with kids rights should always automatically usurp everyone elses.
l dont seat save for the record unless there are quite a few seats left in which case my (adult) DD might go and sit down in a window seat or whatever. But l wouldnt do it in a crowded restaurant.

Yes sudaname you eat you burger on the fence.

Shall l save you a nice fence post without splinters while l'm here Sparkling

Yes please sudaname. I am now too scared to go to a burger place or a cafe in case I break one of the rules.

Yeah me too, l wonder if we only go when it's raining/blowing a hooley/snowstorm or thundering and lightening and you one of us can seat save one of their outside picnic tables. Surely we will greatly reduce the risk of upsetting anyone then. They'd probably give the two loons sat out in the rain a wide berth tbh.

I have just the thing to solve the problem. Go and order food, pick it up then hey presto erect this beauty.

McDonald's, yabu for using it.get a sandwich from m&s and eat it on a bench :)

Ah but Sparkling it is a 4 seater so what if we get company ?

Then when we've finished and they're not finished ? Could we then start folding it away on the grounds we brought it ?

Can you imagine the AIBU ? 'We were at Macdonalds today when the other people sat at the table finished their food and started to dismantle the bloody table !!!' They were about to drive off when luckily we saw DM-I-Ls leg sticking out - l mean really !!

Brilliant sudaname. I think if we owned the table we would be within our rights to fold it up complete with the company. Especially if they had saved our table.

What annoys me is groups of people who sit with one coffee between them hogging the sofas in coffee shops.

White whine. Something about this thread makes me feel like pointing out that while you're squabbling over chairs at fast food restaurants there are children in Africa going hungry.

I think you are the first to mention this is a First World problem Midnite.

Oh ffs! So we should talk about nothing but starving children should we?! Don't be ridiculous!

If I go to a place like this and it's chockablock, I walk out.

I think it is best to judge it by the queue expat you are right. If the tables are busy and there's a queue out the door it's just not worth it.

I get their drinks to be going on with; they sit at the table drinking, while I wait for the food

But I never go at madly busy times eg college lunch hour. Its hell.

OP, good for you. If everyone bought food before sitting down, the system would actually work fine. It's when people try to seat-save that it falls down. In a former life I worked at McDonalds and at busy times, if people would just trust the system, by the time they'd finished queuing seats would become available.

Just on a side note, has anyone else noticed they are not as quick to wipe the tables if at all in some of these places nowadays. l always have hand wipes in my bag and often end up wiping the table myself to everyones 'look at that woman with OCD' amusement. l mean sometimes, like the other day we got our food and there were four or five empty tables dotted around. Now l dont believe that all of them had got up simultaneously and literally just gone. The place wasnt busy at all either, loads of staff stood around behind counter.
But not one was clean so OCD mummy has to do it with her wipes.
Then l got the Brasso out of my bag and started on the door handles

sudaname I do a lot of table wiping sometimes even after they have been wiped. I am a dab hand at table clearing as well if need be.

i think i must live in a parallel universe. In most maccys i have been in, i have joined the queue, the kids scout for seats. It takes at most 5 minutes to purchase the food (unless ordered something different to the usual). In that time the kids have found seats- usually by lurking next to someone who has nearly finished. We eat the food- takes 10 mins or so and leave. If it is busier, the whole process takes a little longer. Is that not the point of fast food?

our local also has a person that sweeps the hoards of teenagers out after they have finished on a saturday afternoon.

re coffee shops- our local costa is full of people eating a granola bar and a cup of coffee over about an hour. It has about 25 seats in it, I have never actually got to the point of purchase because I want to sit down. So i go to our friendly independent one who lets people sit as long as they want until there is a queue and seats are going to be an issue, at which point they politely ask if you still need the table or are finished.

Hey Sparkling we could start a little business , like these people who descend on cars at traffic lights etc and just start ask to wash your windscreen. Just maraud around MaccyDs brandishing J cloths and a bottle of Flash. 50p a table maybe ? For a £1 we could offer a 'Premium service' including erecting your own personal picnic table and chairs and 'you choose where to sit, we do the rest'

I think the key point which arises from this frequent topic is that there is clearly no fixed 'rule' about it. Therefore, by all means sit down first if you must, but accept that if people with food plonk themselves at the table too, you can't stop them. The thing which is completely illogical is the few who claim there is no fixed rule But then think that a coat, bag, child or whatever dumped on a chair claims some sort of ownership. I still think its entirely normal that several adults together queue and carry their own trays (in fact I'd like to see anyone try to manage more than one tray singlehanded) and its entirely reasonable that once they've purchased their food they sit and eat it where there are free chairs. And as aviva says, fast food is usually fast, so the eaters will then get up and go, leaving their seats for other people to eat. Tbh anyone who thinks that by using one chair at a table they can prevent people from sitting and eating is a right numpty

We could advertise thus :

'Quick Flash job - 50p.

Full Erection - £1.'

Good for you, OP. My bravest moment (in a life of very little bravery) was when I removed three towels from three poolside sunbeds on holiday, neatly folded them and placed them on the ground so that my children and I could use the loungers.

The towels' owners were looking on from the bar area in total shock that their plan to claim loungers for a whole day at a busy pool was being so rudely undermined. They and I had a silent huff competition, narrowing our eyes and pursing our lips so far that it hurt.