To have said this?

[WinehouseAmy]

I was in a well known fast food chain tonight. Wasn’t particularly busy however it took 10 minutes to be served (despite me being at the front of the queue) then 20 minutes for my order to be prepared.
There was another customer waiting for their order with a young child with them( approx 6/7 years of age) and during the time I was stood waiting the child climbed up on the counter.
I can understand it was a lengthy wait for anyone, especially a younger child at gone 7pm. What I can’t understand is why the child was allowed to bum shuffle around the counter, put their dirty trainers upon the counter and sit there whilst food was being placed on the counter and passed over to customers.
When the guardian of the child collected their order I waited a further couple of minutes and asked that the counter top be cleaned before my food was put on there. Behind me was the guardian who called me rude and asked ‘can’t you understand their a child?!’. I suggested that someone could become seriously ill off the germs on her shoes and that it wasn’t appropriate or safe for her to be sat on the counter.
Aibu to expect a staff member to have intervened in the first place given the risks to both the child and customers and for the guardian to have a bit more common sense and courtesy?

Sorry, OP my clumsy English strikes again!

I’m tired, that’s my excuse.

I wasn’t criticising you at all, I may well have asked for the surface to be cleaned, same as you. I don’t see anything wrong with that request.

I just also agree with whattodoabout...’s point that many staff members would be reluctant to get involved and risk abuse if they told the parent to get the kid down. Staff shouldn’t be put in that position in the first place, people should control their kids and not be so disgusting.

I think it's rude to let your kid put their shoes up on a food serving counter, yes.

Maybe I'm old fashioned?!

The staff should tell the parents to make their kid get down - the parents should never have allowed their entitled offspring to clamber up there in the first place.

Kids these days seem to be under the impression that they can do what they want whenever and wherever they want to, and who cares about anyone else. And, incredibly, their parents actually let them.

What is wrong with some people?

Every independent chicken & pizza shop (there's one every 20yards in NE London) where I am has signs saying no children on the counter. Which seems good safety & hygiene advice to me, they could fall, have dirty shoes or leaky nalpies etc then trays etc would be contaminated. Why don't larger chains have signs?

Why don't larger chains have signs?

CSIblonde Signs shouldn’t be needed. It’s common sense and I think saying a sign is necessary is implying restaurants are at fault when they aren't. If you start saying signs should be put up for common sense, mundane things you would have no free wall space!

Of course YANBU but people on here will bleat about paper bags.

It's a gross thing to allow and the manager should be made aware of it.

Yanbu, if you went and sat down at a macdonalds or kfc table you wouldn’t be happy to eat your food off a dirty table even though your own food was protected by trays, bags etc. So why would you want your food put on a dirty counter where dirty shoes have trampled.

OP: AIBU?
Everyone: Yes
OP: argues with everyone about why she's not BU

Utter bollocks. Plenty of support for OP on here and I'll throw my own YANBU into the ring.
I wonder if those saying it's OK for children and their muddy shoes to be on a food counter ever clean/ wipe their own dining tables. If so, why? Your food is on plates after all so it doesn't matter.

People just love to be disingenuous and contrary on AIBU.

I'm no germophobe, but it seriously puts you off wanting to eat food cooked in other people's house, if they think shoes on a food prep/service area is OK.

I honestly don't think anyone would think this was even vaguely OK in their own home (unless they genuinely live as savages), so why are they making out it's OK on this thread?

Yeah what’s that all about, loads have said the op wasn’t being unreasonable. In fact it’s very reasonable to have said what she did. Why the hell should a kid be allowed to trample muddy shoes over a food counter.

YANBU

YANBU. I would not be happy about that. I’m with you, you don’t know what is on the child’s shoes. There is no need for the to be climbing up there, and I wouldn’t want my food out there either, paper bag or not.

YANBU!!!!
in food service that is one of the things thats a big NO NO, ass and feet on a counter is not allowed and requires a antibac clean up, i had many a times told people to remove their child from the counter and then cleaned it in front of them and stood guard to prevent it happening again, ( had a lady ( wife of chef) in chatting to a co worker once and she sat her baby on the counter, i asked her to remove it and there was a lovely puddle of urine!!! i got to clean that up :D YAY ME!! co worker got piss all over her side from holding the little darling)

I haven't read the full thread.

I worked in Aldi for 2 years and had a rule no children were allowed go stand, sit or play on the packing benches as it's a safety risk if they fall and a health risk for germs.
No lie I must have had to repeat to parents and children at least 30 times per shift and most parents kicked off and I hated it.
We were all responsible for the portion of packing bench next to our till (obviously one person at one end of the store couldn't shout to the other end).
We all hated doing it but it's classed as our job.
One staff member wasn't fast enough and 7yo sat in the bench and literally pissed herself everywhere, it was quite busy and shoppers had to literally slide their shopping away from the piss.
Then we had a hold up while trying to clean the area and a back log of customers with no where to pack.
I agree parents should take more responsibility, but they won't. And instead staff are stuck in an awkward position of telling other people's kids off and getting bollocking off the parents for trying to do their job.
I agree with OP.
If people actually told their kids off for doing stupid shit the world wouldn't be in such a state.
There is literally no reason or benefit for a kid to be sitting/standing/being a knob on a counter not made for child's play in a public place.
I don't think they'd let their kids walk on their dining table in shoes before dinner time.

Also I wanted 30 minutes for a KFC before while DH was next to me bleeding and drugged up from having his 3 wisdom teeth taken out 20 minutes before 😳
They can out of cooked chicken but said it would be 15 minutes, I looked at DH and decided my need for KFC was too great and we'd wait. Paid and stepped to the side.
15 minutes later went and asked and they said they'd forgotten about us and sold all the cooked choice again!
But they refunded me and said I could have it for free for the inconvenience if I waited another 20 minutes.
Sorry DH we waited the 20 minutes!

You want germs? Last week a woman came to my counter with a kid aged about two. I ran her shopping through at which point she said 'oh, almost forgot' and reached over to the child who was sucking on something.
She plonked a pack of half sucked strawberry gum in my hands, covered in slobber and the barcode chewed away. She seemed surprised that I was a bit disgusted by this.

And this is why I have hand sanitiser on my belt.

This thread proves once again something i’ve always noticed.....that a lot of mumsnetters just love to go against whatever the Op is about. If it was the other way round and an op came on and said

“I work at McDonalds and there was a child trampling over the counter in muddy shoes,but i just ignored it and continued to plonk food down on the muddy counter, aibu to have not cared, because after all the food was protected by paper/cardboard”

Can’t you just imagine the outcry against the Op...... People are just plain argumentative and awkward aren’t they.

Yes, coolmule it happens a lot.

Also, if there's a gobby poster taking the piss and saying YABU near the beginning of the thread, then it sets a tone and loads of mindless others pile on and agree/ slate OP/ continue to take the piss, like a bully's cowardly mates hiding behind them and sneering "me too". It really is like bullying sometimes.
Later more reasonable posters will arrive, but often OP will have disappeared by then.

I wouldn't let a child that age do that simply because it's uncouth but I can understand why someone might let a preverbal child do it. But even in that instance there is absolutely nothing rude or unreasonable about asking staff to clean it once they had gone.

1. If I worked there I would have told the child to get down and proactively wiped it

1. I wouldn’t be bothered enough to ask staff to clean the countertop but I would make a comment to whoever I was with how gross it was

I agree about the pile on.

ParanoidGynodroid that’s exactly it, this thread is the epitome of it.

YANBU. What kind of appaling education and behaviour is getting accepted at the moment because people are: a- dirty assholes, b- feckless parents too self centered to understand their spawns are being pita?
As for the sneering Yabu posters, god, I hope to never eat at yours or shake your hand...

I don't think you ABU - expecting a guardian to not let a child climb all over a counter is reasonable. If the child was at your home, would they be allowed to climb over everything?!

YABU however the guardian of the child shouldn't have let them climb up on a counter. So you were both being unreasonable.

I work in catering. If anyone let their child stand on my counters, muddy shoes or not, they’d be told to take them down. Then I’d clean the counter with sanitiser. It doesn’t matter whether the food was wrapped or not it is not acceptable practice in a food establishment.