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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

You grab a table while I queue up....

313 replies

Grandshiredoubles · 14/02/2015 23:24

Which means that some people before you can't get anywhere to sit. Happened today in Waitrose where the naice people should kmow better. Do you think people should wait until they have their food before getting a table or Aibu. Talking about YOU lady with the red shoes in malvern today

OP posts:
UncleT · 15/02/2015 01:30

*sit down and

Alisvolatpropiis · 15/02/2015 01:31

I think it depends on the type of place and how busy it is.

however · 15/02/2015 03:33

I do it. I'm not disabled in any way. It makes perfect sense to me and I didn't know it was a thing.

YourMaNoBraBackOfMyCar · 15/02/2015 03:39

Yikes I've done two - three laps of the food court with my tray of food balanced precariously in one hand and pushing a shopping laden buggy around with the other trying to find a seat. Just one of those things. Just because I've struggled when alone doesn't mean I won't partake in bagsying when I can. :o you win some you lose some.

Topseyt · 15/02/2015 04:18

I send my daughters ahead to get a table while I queue. Makes perfect sense to me.

After all, isn't that why I had them?!Wink

squoosh · 15/02/2015 04:26

I'd happily grab a table while my friend queued. It's the sensible course of action. There's always a martyr though..............

TheChickenSituation · 15/02/2015 04:42

I get you OP, it is annoying, but too many people (including myself at times) will secure a table first, so until the revolution comes, you either have to suck up the injustice of it all, or join 'em if you can't beat 'em.

SoonToBeSix · 15/02/2015 04:52

Heehiles you were the rude one, not the lady!

UnicornasoreAss · 15/02/2015 05:18

Me and DH went to his fav eating place, he was terminally ill and had staples in his head from brain tumour op, he also had MS. So not good for standing
We were third in the queue there were two empty tables, woman at front had already bagged a table, I told DH to go and sit down before he fell over.
He sat at a table for two, woman in front of me said, That man has stolen my table, and I've had flu and been really ill.
I shouted over to DH, you can't have that table as is belongs to this lady who's been really ill. DH got up took off his hat revealing shaved head and staples and waved her to the table with his hat!
We giggled all the way home about him stealing really ill old ladies tables.

RingtheBells · 15/02/2015 05:42

YANBU It really annoys me. M&S cafe is a typical example.

toomuchtooold · 15/02/2015 05:43

I wouldn't mind if everyone had equal opportunity to do this but it's particularly hard if you're alone with a couple of little kids and you've no option but to queue first and take your chances while all the groups of little old ladies reserve the best seats, hello Croydon M&S café, I'm talking about you. You could sort that with e.g. a stack of "reserved to...." cards at the door that you could take and fill in and plonk on a table.

arlagirl · 15/02/2015 05:47

I only go to cafes where there is waitress service Grin

MrsMaker83 · 15/02/2015 06:13

I wont order food until we have somewhere to sit. Simple.

Yabu.

Kittymum03 · 15/02/2015 06:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MythicalKings · 15/02/2015 06:14

When I'm with another person or people I always do this. If you want hot food some places want a table number before you order.

Table reservers are nowhere near as annoying as table squatters who order a couple of drinks and think that entitles them to sit there for 3 hours while other people are looking for somewhere to sit.

FishWithABicycle · 15/02/2015 06:18

Grandshiredoubles So would you wait at a supermarket till while your friend does the shopping?

DH and I did this in Waitrose yesterday. The queues were humungous (presumably everyone in the world had decided that getting a nice ready meal from there would be preferable to the horrendous conveyor-belt experience of restaurants on valentines day). We took it in turns to queue while the other grabbed what we needed, and by the time we got to the front of the queue we had everything. WWBU?

ChillieJeanie · 15/02/2015 06:20

I see this a lot in the Costa near me. What I don't understand is the people who walk in, see the place is already rammed and there are a lot of people already waiting to order. I am talking queuing in a double line down the centre of the cafe here - people still walk in, see the long queue, and lay claim to a table the moment one comes available. Why would you do that when you can see the place is heaving and it's going to take a good 20 minutes for the person in your party to order? That's when it becomes selfish behaviour. There are other places to go around here.

I decide when I come to place my order whether I think I will find somewhere to sit or whether I should ask for my drink to go. Last Sunday afternoon I took the risk of ordering to sit in, and saw a table for two come free after I had placed my order. The drinks being prepared ahead of mine were to go, so I went and put my coat and bag over one of the chairs and went back to wait for the drink I had already paid for to be made up. A couple of potential table baggers walked in (queue not too long, but well past the door) and I actually heard one complaining to the other about me having put my things at that table so they couldn't have it. They had just walked in!

BrianButterfield · 15/02/2015 06:40

The real question is - why, in a world which is, in my opinion, overstocked with cafes, does anyone go into one with a huge queue anyway? You know your coffee will be lukewarm, whatever you want to order will be run out and the table will be slightly grubby, just go somewhere else!

MokunMokun · 15/02/2015 06:56

Enter restaurant, dump children and bags at a table. Queue in peace. Why wouldn't you? Stop being such martyrs!

Mehitabel6 · 15/02/2015 07:22

It comes up regularly on MN and nothing has changed my mind yet. There is no way that I am going to queue up if I haven't got a seat-I go for common sense! It is no big deal, if I am on my own and can't save one, I simply go and sit on an occupied table with spare seats.
The thing that really, really irritates me is people with children who make them all queue and get in everyone's way ( dangerous with hot liquids) when it would do everyone a great favour, staff and customers, if they found a table, settled the children there with the bags and buggy and then got their food.
There is no problem. Before Christmas DH and I were in a crowded M&S cafe, it was busy but we had no alternative, for some reason we were queuing together and then couldn't find a table so we sat down on one with a couple already on one end- we said 'sorry to sit here but no alternative' - they could see it was true. I can't see why people become such martyrs!
You can 'tut' all you like- I shall get a table first- unless I am on my own- and just wish that everyone else would too.

VeronicaCaCa · 15/02/2015 07:57

There are lots of signs in our local M&S cafe asking customers not to sit down before they have ordered and paid. Meh. I do it anyway.

PoppySausage · 15/02/2015 07:59

Always do this, as far as I'm concerned its fine. I don't like to queue if I think I may not get anywhere to sit. Just go pop your coat on a seat if it bothers you and join in!

Scholes34 · 15/02/2015 08:08

It's just one of the downsides of self-service. And there's always the problem of someone then holding up the queue because the person they're with, seated at the other end of the cafe and holding a table ordered tomato soup, but they've run out of that and only got chicken soup and the person in the queue doesn't know whether they'll want that instead or to choose something else, so they have to go over and speak to them.

Anyway, Waitrose isn't full of naice people. It's full of too many people who are rude and much more important than you that they need to push past you.

Mehitabel6 · 15/02/2015 08:13

I ignore the M&S signs too- they are unreasonable to expect people to order with no seat.

Scholes34 · 15/02/2015 08:14

Fish - totally unreasonable, but very Waitrose.