John Lewis Café Rage

[GoneClubbing]

Went to John Lewis café today, this is Southampton, in case you know it, the one on the top floor with lovely panoramic windows. We were lucky enough to get a table by the window. So DS and I are there enjoying our drinks, minding our own business, when a middle-aged woman comes by with a tray of dirty stuff and dumps it on our table! I gave her a 'wtf?' look and she kind of gesticulated towards the table nearby, where her DH had sat down. So in order to have a clear table themselves, they dumped someone else's dirty stuff on ours! When we'd finished I was going to do the same to them but DS wouldn't let me. WTAF? AIBU for this to give me the rage

Slightly unhinged reaction Dolly

I don't understand why you didn't immediately move it back to her table.

I would've dumped it back on her table without missing a beat.

Im a right wimp but even I'd move it back!!

Sadly you must have looked a bit soft.

No one would have done this to me. I always thought I was a friendly looking person but I am 5ft 8 and I think I can appear frosty and not tolerant of idiots. So no one would do that to me. But then I would have probably picked up the tray and tipped it on her lap put it firmly back on her table.

Do a bit or assertiveness training OP.

I can't see why John Lewis would have barred you for telling her to put the tray somewhere else.

I really can't fathom why you would let someone do that to you? Sorry if this comes across as rude OP but you obviously look as much of a doormat as you are hence why it happened. I would of shoved it off the table there and then.

Why on earth didn't you get the staff involved?

Why would you get the staff involved?

To complain about what the other customer did and get her kicked out, of course.

I am clearly a doormat too - I would have been so taken aback that the moment would have been missed. I wouldn't go and get a staff member as I'm not 3 and this isn't a playground - but I would have put on my most grand expression, and looked at lady and her husband in disbelief. I don't really think compounding someone else's ill manners by behaving in an ill-mannered way back is overly helpful (plus there are some raging nutters out there - who wants to have a stand up fight when you're trying to have a cuppa?): but if you have someone with you, you do have an excellent opportunity for discussing the weirdness if you feel up to some pa behaviour.

All that said - a bloody weird thing to do on her behalf!

Why on earth would you be barred for either returning a tray or asking her to remove it??
And as for your son, he has just been shown how his mum let's people walk all over her, there is ways of being assertive without being rude.

Having lived in Soton I can well believe this. yadnbu!

I probably wouldn't have done anything other than silently rage either op.

I love that cafe. I was in the Ikea cafe across the road from there at lunchtime, lovely views but it was heaving. No one put their rubbish on my table though so that's something I suppose

The John Lewis cafe is naice though 99, the nicest one in town by a mile.

I had a man try and do this in starbucks

After a curt no thank you twice and said i dint want your dirty cups and a death stare he wilted a bit and found an empty table.

I think though he was so unaware of his surroundings or anyone else he was not aware that other people would object - which is a worry really that people have become so insular.

Something similar happened to me once, I replaced the crockery back onto the offenders table when I left!

Furios / raging. etc?

She didnt spit in your face FFS.

It wouldn't have made me rage at all, I just would have put it straight back on her table and I bet she wouldn't have dared do it again.

To tolerate it and then rage about it later is passive aggressive.

How bloody rude of her! You definitely should have dumped it right back...cheeky mare!

Was your table a 4 seater and the rest of the tables taken? Only way I can see her actions as slightly reasonable at a push.

1Potato, theirs was equally a table for 4 (with two of them there).

I'd have said 'sorry you need to put it over there' pointing at a station for used trays. Unless she genuinely had physical problems walking there - but then she must have put up with the dirty cups herself.

farrow....I did say I was Hangry......

Ah Muddlewitch, if you don't have kids with you then the Pig In The Wall is the best place in Southampton by a mile!

Id of probably thought wtf given a death stare and laughed. If it annoyed me i would likely say something but thats not always a good thing. I have got myself into difficult situations a couple of times Sometimes you are better to laugh (at them) and perhaps offer to put it in the bin for them (sarcastically and smile)

Fellow Sotonite here. The food court at the top of West Quay is just as bad! Nowhere to sit at lunchtime as tables are either taken or have somebodys discarded shite on them. I can count 4 bin locations off the top of my head all no more than 20 steps away but few others seem to notice