Teams calls in cafe and toddler

[Swiftswatch]

I’m probably being unreasonable for posting here in the first place since there’s a bit of an anti kids in public sentiment here at times, but when did it become acceptable for people to think a coffee shop is the same as an office??
I was just having breakfast and a coffee with my toddler and someone was taking a teams call at a nearby table. If it’s relevant we were seated first.
Toddler was being good as gold imo, I get sometimes they can be too loud or badly behaved but they were just sat drinking their juice and having a little babble and sing, occasionally pointing out things they seen. “Cup! Cup!” Obviously louder than if I was just sat by myself but really not a disturbance and no louder than any other table of 2 chatting.

The man was sat sighing and rolling his eyes for about ten minutes until I just had to turn to him and say ‘sorry but this is actually a cafe not an office, if you’re in a meeting and need silence you’re in the wrong place’.
He did a big huff, picked up his laptop and walked off trying to find a new table but had to come back as it was too busy.

Now he’s sitting there giving me evil eyes.

AIBU to think I’m not in the wrong here?? I’m really not a confrontational person and normal wouldn’t speak up but a public cafe at breakfast time isn’t exactly the place to do a work meeting!
If people want to rave about working from home then go fucking work at home. People out in public don’t need to tiptoe around you because you want a change of scenery during the work day while you sit in meetings.

YANBU. He was clearly being passive aggressive with the eye rolling and you challenged him. If he needs privacy or some level of quiet then a cafe is not a place to conduct a teams meeting.

Imaging being a mom that has to take team calls with her toddler in the background.

Nobody "has" to do that. Toddlers should be in childcare whilst their parents work.

Barring emergencies, nobody should be working from home and trying to supervise a toddler at the same time.

Missing comma, I think.

the toddler should be able to speak, just like any adult should is what I believe was meant.

Blimey that's a potentially telling aggressive response! Adults can speak, toddler can speak. Adults should not sing and it's parents jobs to teach children not to sing in confined spaces. Babbling is toddlers way of talking and is fine. Allowing children to do things like sing or scream (no reason to think yours wasn't but I've seen it happen) without trying to quieten them down (I'm not talking about shouting at them just ssshhh or no singing or trying to distract them) is entitled parenting.

Neither of you is unreasonable for being there or doing what you're both doing but he is unreasonable for not bringing headphones given that he knew he'd be in a noisy space.

Can you explain why a toddler singing in a cafe is worse than an adult doing a Teams call?

I don't say it was?!

Ok, so what is actually wrong with a toddler singing in a cafe? Cafes aren't silent places. Why is a toddler singing worse than other noise?

It's louder and harder to tune out.

Eh?

How loud a noise is isn't determined by whether it is classified as singing, speaking, laughing, whistling or what have you.

It's determined by how loud it is.

In my experience the loudest people in public places tend to be those making work calls who want everyone to know how important they are, and large groups who like to shriek at each other. A single toddler singing wouldn't even register on my radar.

A toddler who is singing is a toddler who is not having a tantrum or watching videos on their parent's phone with the sound turned on, both of which I would find much harder to tune out.

And adults who can't figure out how to use their indoor voices (of which there are many) are way more irritating than children.

Toddlers' high pitched voices carry far more than adults do and they aren't exactly known for their volume control so the singing is generally going to be louder I agree.

I don’t think this is true.

Lower pitched sounds are often far more of a problem than higher pitched ones. They travel further and seem to have much more resonance for the people around them.

I know that the sound of my teenage son talking to his friends is much more intrusive than my toddler’s voice in my house. Even if they’re talking at the same volume.

Well then it's up to their parents to get them to be quieter if they are being too loud. Banning singing, or toddlers, is unnecessary.

We all need to be teaching our children how to co-exist with others in society. That means little children must be allowed in public places (because otherwise how will they learn to behave in those places?), and they must be taught not to make an excessive amount of noise or behave in a way that obviously disrupts others, but equally that it's OK to make a reasonable amount of noise and that we can't expect total silence from others either.

Unfortunately I have no idea how we as a society are equipped to teach toddlers to behave in a way that is respectful of others when so many adults seem incapable of doing so.

If we are going to move towards banning certain antisocial behaviour in public spaces, I'd ban phone calls and playing any kind of music or media on personal devices before I'd ban toddlers singing.

It might be me then(Autistic thing perhaps?) but I definitely notice high pitched voices much more readily than low. I find young children's voices much more piercing, irritating and noticeable for this reason. Their complete lack of the concept of volume control doesn't help either. Or perhaps I'm still recovering from the trauma of working in childcare for a few years.

If people want to work in a cafe I think it’s fine so long as they accept that environment. Noise wise they get what they get. They can’t expect everyone to be quiet just because they’ve chosen to work in that cafe. Go to the library if you want silence.

I’ve only worked in a cafe once. I had a minor procedure and was told without advanced warning that I couldn’t cycle for an hour or so. I went to the nearest cafe and sat quietly drinking coffee and getting on with some work.

A quick Google suggests that it isn't just me who finds high pitched voices, especially children's voices, much more noticeable. That's not to say that everyone does but it seems that I'm not alone.

For me it's anything on an electronic device. Calls are the worst because if the person is using a headset they tend to shout, and if they aren't, you get to enjoy both halves of the conversation. And hearing other people's music (either because they're an absolute turd who plays their music out loud without using headphones, or because their headphones leak sound), videos, games or any kind of keypad noises (turn the sounds OFF, you wankers!) make me want to go and smack the person round the head.

If the toddlers was not singing but was playing a game or watching a cartoon on their parent's phone I would be raging. An entitled parent raising an entitled child.

Singing, provided it's not at an excessive volume, I don't mind.

I agree with phone calls and music and media. No one should feel entitled to do those things in public. But we don't have to stagger how we ban things. We could try and create a culture which recognises that all of these things, plus singing and screaming, are antisocial in confined spaces. We teach children how to behave by not ignoring them when they breach these rules. I'm not saying toddlers shouldn't be in cafes just that when they do things which they need to learn not to do, adults gently respond. Same as if they throw things or do other things which we discourage. As I said, OP may have been doing exactly that and this is not relevant to whether teams man was being entitled.

Anyone singing in a cafe would wind me up and I'd probably leave unless it was really quiet, but toddlers are not known for singing quietly. I recognise that this is my issue, though!

Well I guess that based on the OP's posts, her toddler may have been behaving in an antisocial way (the OP thinks not but is not impartial) whereas Teams man was definitely behaving in an antisocial way.

I'm pretty sensitive to noise (as you may have guessed) but I take the view that if you can't tolerate a normal amount of noise, and I include normal toddler noise in that, don't go to a cafe.

My worry is that with everyone having multiple electronic devices on them and people being less and less aware of how irritating these noises can be for others (or simply being too entitled to care), a lot of public places are going to become intolerable.

This annoys me in cafes, but buses annoy me even more. I don't want to hear other people's films blaring out of their tiktoks or the call to prayer. Why can't these arseholes wear headphones. Oh and also the people that speak loudly on speakerphone so everyone else has to hear both sides of the conversation.

You're not in the wrong.

The guy was a pillock.

I see more and more people setting up shop in cafes these days, laptops in tow, and often having meetings with others. I mean, whatever, do what you like, but don't expect the rest of Starbucks to pander to you.

Exactly this! Well done for sorting him out.

What an entitled arse! Also very stupid to have a teams mtg in a cafe, I mean really?!