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.

Why is it wrong to point out that some people with children leave a terrible mess (unless of course you are one of those people who leave the mess and think everyone else needs to clear it up because after all you have a child!)

Personally I think taking a teams call in a cafe is more distracting and anti-social than normal level kids. Rent an office space if you’re so high and mighty.

Good for you saying something! He can't expect people to be quiet, he should be at home or in office if he wants that.

Oh come on! Unless the cafe is specifically for laptop-workers (do these exist?), then no, it's his responsibility to find a quiet space and he obviously showed no willing to rub along with others, and in fact his behaviour of 'evil eyes' was intimidating. I use Teams a lot (from home or in a quiet space) and I would never dream of expecting people to accommodate my meetings in public spaces.

And to the person bemoaning groups of mums hogging space with a coffee that lasts hours, as well as taking their own food, the people I see doing this more often than not are...students and professionals.

You were in the right OP.

I'm not usually in favour of noisy kids in cafes, but in your situation, I would probably have said to the toddler 'let's see who can scream the loudest'.

It’s just strange.
You came onto the post and made hardly any reference to the actual post and instead ranted about groups of mums in cafes, messy mums, mums who bring kids to fancy restaurants, mums who change babies in the middle of a cafe and mums who don’t control their messy loud children.
I just don’t understand why you’ve made several long comments about all these things that have nothing to do with this situation?

Because it's not relevant to OP's dilemma of whether she was BU or not in telling the man he shouldn't take a Teams call in a cafe if he wants peace and quiet.

Because it's completely irrelevant to the OP's situation. We aren't talking about the general situation of toddlers sometimes leaving cafes in a mess, we are talking about entitled people expecting the world to revolve around their desire to hold Teams meetings in a public place.

They do exist - they're called internet cafes and they are set up specifically for people wanting to use computers and/or work. I wouldn't take my toddler for breakfast in one because I'd expect them to be quieter than a usual cafe.

Because he hadn't asked you or your toddler to be quiet or stop doing what you were doing.

He was rolling his eyes and huffing and puffing because he was annoyed at the situation but you're reading into his behaviour that he was expecting perfect silence or an office environment, or for you to act in any other way.

"Internet cafes"? It's 2023, not 1998! Every cafe is an internet cafe!

A Cafe is certainly not the place for a TEAMs call. In fact my work doesn’t allow us to join calls from public places for confidentiality reasons.

@Swiftswatch Our local café is overtaken by very shrill out of control young children sometimes ( we go elsewhere!) but you are being completely reasonable here.

No way is a single child being good a problem
especially as you were there FIRST!

I'd listen to people chatting or laughing or kids playing at a cafe table all day long over some idiot doing a work call where I have to listen to him/her discussing whether or not the client is going to be happy with those numbers...

@Inkpotlover Have I travelled back in time to 1995? OP wasn't in an "internet cafe"

'They do exist - they're called internet cafes and they are set up specifically for people wanting to use computers and/or work.'

Hey Marty, you're Delorean has just pulled up to take you back to the 80s...

You aren’t wrong, and I absolutely LOVE that you said something. What an arrogant prick.

I saw something similar in a coffee shop the other day. The man huffed and puffed about it then packed up his laptop and stormed out - I had my 10 month old in a sling and was carrying a shopping bag, and two old ladies were holding the door open for me but he stormed past instead. We looked at each other and one of the ladies, who must have been in her 80s, said “oh they are such TWATS aren’t they” and I creased up 😂😂😂😂😂

Not unreasonable to expect noise in a cafe, no. Not at all.

Don't assume people sat in there working are "working from home" though. A lot of people go into cafes, etc., when they're travelling between meetings or offices, for example, and need to get online so will buy coffee somewhere to do so.

I do it a lot but certainly wouldn't even think about getting annoyed at the noise, though.

No, not every cafe is an internet cafe. These ones have banks of screens at desks, rather than tables for socialising around. They still exist where I live in London.

Nobody has the right to silence in a public space like a cafe.

I wouldn't have said anything to him unless he'd actually complained though. I'd have just rolled my own eyes and ignored his dramatic sighing.

FFS. I was answering someone who asked whether internet cafes still exist and they do.

An internet cafe is not the same thing as a cafe with WiFi access.

That was re "every cafe is an internet cafe"

Exactly! Thank you. There is a difference and internet cafes do still exist.

There aren’t so many of them around now. They date back to when not everyone had internet access at home and normal cafes didn’t have wifi.