To ask older lady to wear headphones in cafe

[Bearlionfalcon]

There is a cafe where I defo sometimes to work quietly on my laptop. It’s really well priced and friendly staff. I always buy either breakfast or lunch plus a few coffees and there is no issue over laptop use as there’s tons of space and many others do it. I always have sound turned off and never make calls.
There is a woman, I would say she is young 70s, who comes in nearly every day with her husband. She sits on her phone and flicks through Tik Tok videos with the sound on. It’s so incredibly annoying and distracting and I find it so inconsiderate.
The first couple of times I said nothing but yesterday I went over and said ‘I’m sorry, do you have any headphones you could use?’
She looked at me in horror and said ‘I never use headphones. I saw you looking over at me. I will put my phone away when I’m ready to.’ She then carried on.
I was so shocked, I said ‘but what would happen if everyone in the cafe played music out loud on their phone…’
She interrupted me and snapped ‘I’m not playing music,’ (Technically true, she was watching Tik Tok videos which are so much more annoying). Then she said: ‘Other people talk very loudly.’
Her tone was so loud and confrontational I sort of gave up and said ‘well, I was just letting you know that it was bothering me’ and went back to my table.
Her husband then said incredibly loudly ‘How rude. When we come to this cafe all the time. I bet she wouldn’t talk to someone else about that but she’s come up and spoken to you’ - basically implying I’ve picked on her because she is an older woman, as opposed to some intimidating bloke or young person. Which is not true!
She carried on exactly as before, making loads of noise with her phone. I honestly couldn’t believe the level of entitlement.
For context these were not a frail elderly couple but an obviously wealthy middle class couple. It’s a mixed are where there are houses which cost millions and also council flats etc.
WIBU to speak to her?

Not the point. Why doesn't the lady use headphones instead of subjecting everyone else to her TikTok shite?

She sounds like an utter twat

I’ve twice asked teenagers on buses either to put in their ear pods or turn off the noise as no one wants to listen to their racket. Shockingly, they’ve complied! 🤣

Completely unreasonable statement. I bet she's annoying most other non-working customers also.

Totally been derailed by age and working in a cafe. If they said I was chilling by myself or catching up with a friend I expect there would be totally different replies.

The OP has said that they like the vibe of cafe. If they had headphones, what would be the point. They like a bit of chatter.

Think I might be inclined to get TikTok up. Finding the most annoying ones. If lady moans I would say I have decide to embrace your philosophy and share with the cafe. Only for a short time to get the point otherwise would be just as bad.

YADNBU
I honestly find that 9 times out of 10 when someone is playing their phone on full volume in public places, it’s a middle/older aged woman. It’s definitely not what I would have expected, but it’s almost always that way. SO annoying & inconsiderate.

Urgh. Hate people like that.

I would play Rage Against the Machine on full blast until they stopped ("Fuck you - I won't do what you tell me" would be a nice PA twist to the lyrics). If the cafe staff say anything to you then they are beholden to speak to the others, since they are disturbing you in the same way.

On public transport I have sometimes been tempted to order a large packet of cheap headphones from Amazon and hand them out to offenders. Unfortunately now because they are mostly Bluetooth it would be too expensive to do that. Do people - including some on this thread - really not understand that the tinny whine from a phone is very different from actual human conversation?

I am menopausal and seem to be extremely sensitive to certain noises, of which phone/ipad is one. Faced with the circumstances of the OP, I would probably have to leave the cafe as I couldn’t cope with the ghastly racket.

Just adding here - although not specifically relevant to the cafe's old lady - that equivalent twattery on a train is actually against the law, at least in UK.

Railway Byelaw 7.1.2 reads, "except with written permission from an operator no person on the railway shall, to the annoyance of any person: ... use any instrument, article or equipment for the production or reproduction of sound".

Not many people - including those who work on trains (!) - are aware of this byelaw. But I've used it a few times to get people (old and young) to stop using their phones or ipads etc in a way others (me, particularly) can hear. (Ask to see their "written permission", which of course they don't have.)

Keep fighting back against selfish noise-polluting twats! We have both morality and (often) legality on our side.

I think we all get fed up of idiots that think everyone in the room needs to hear, the screech tinny cartoons on devices fir kids that aren't taught to sit and eat food properly, the people that when in a group have to force our the loudest over the top laugh and that a nothing hand slapping everytime they laugh.

Is there some bloody rule on tik too that all these shorts have to have the most loud and annoying background noise.

I think that's why most people can relate. On the same token though, my partner and I walked straight back out of a coffee shop overseas once because it was like a morgue with people all buried silently in laptops and there was a sign I think telling us that if we were none workers we had to sit in a basement level room!

So you think it’s fine to blast tik tok videos in public places? I often wonder who these antisocial cretins are, do you teach your children that’s it is ok to do this too?

Gosh! In my experience it’s a young male whose appearance would , I suspect, deter most of us from challenging the behaviour.

Interesting, ours still has staff cruising about glaring at people making too much noise, shushing if necessary. Huge signs about no phone calls, switching phones to silent etc. Definitely reminded me of the library’s of my youth, not antiquated but definitely enforced etiquette.

And in mine.

No.

Your post is obsessed with her age.

It's fascinating to get an insight into this kind of person. How do you reach adulthood without having any consideration for other people or without learning that most people don't want to listen to your TikToks in public? Even if your parents were too ignorant to teach you, how do you not learn appropriate behaviour from others?

No, not unreasonable. Just like all other generations there can be incredibly rude entitled people. They use inconsideration like weapon. I'd get urself a great pair of noise cancelling headphones to block out the vacuous tiktocker.

That would totally do my head in too. I can’t stand being anywhere near anyone whose personal devices are too noisy. Even if they are elderly and so potentially a bit deaf (as most of us get deafer as we get older),

I would speak to the cafe owner and see what she says. Even when that women isnt there to see if there’s anything she’d be prepared to do about it. I bet she wouldnt hesitate to tell a child to turn the sound down. The problem is that this is a woman. Who is liable to kick up a stooshie. As youve already found out.

In the country I live in, older people are the worst for this. Young people generally use headphones, but older people just blare out their phones at full volume.

My theory is that they missed the "iPod"/"walkman" era.. most of us grew up when portable music needed headphones, devices didn't have speakers, so we got used to wearing headphones.. add in that it's polite, and it became a norm.

But in my country you now have a generation of 60-80 year olds who never did portable media, but now have to use a smartphone, and some of them discover videos/social media... But they have no "norm" for wearing headphones.

The considerate ones may learn, but most don't.

I was on a bus in the middle of the day the other week and there were three, yes THREE, men in their 30s or 40s watching TikTok vids or sport on phones with no headphones. They didn’t know each other so weren’t sharing videos.

I was astonished. It’s like nobody gives a fuck anymore. As they were blokes and I’m a small, middle-aged woman, I just did the British thing of huffing and rolling my eyes in disgust.

I would ask the staff to put up some sort of polite reminder poster or have a word. However, I do think people have become more entitled and you’re on a hiding to nothing, sadly.

But the issue is that noise cancelling headphones block out all noise, not just the selfish phone/ipad listener. OP uses ( I am going to stay out of the working in public places discussion as not relevant) uses a cafe because she feels isolated and doesn’t find the other normal cafe noises of people chatting and coffee being made distracting and presumably enjoys it, otherwise she would sit at home and save money on coffee and breakfast.

There is a particular timbre to the iphone/ipad noise that’s different, I suppose a TV would be similarly annoying, but even then it’s not quite so tinny. Why should OP have to shit herself off from the rest of the world because of a selfish idiot.

It's annoying regardless of someone's age, but equally, I get annoyed with people using cafes and coffee shops as their office. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I hate this
I work as a receptionist and people sit watching videos on their phone which is annoying and distracting. I always tell them to switch the sound off or use headphones. Incredibly entitled

I agree she should not have to shit her self off, lol, I know it's a typo but made me smile. I just meant if all else fails. It's a fine balance isn't it between mitigating for the passive aggression of entitled septo-generian on the one hand and creating space and peace to work and how much time you have for the conflict. Another tack might be to chat to the manager when she's not around (noisy one) and ask if they'd be prepared to put signs up for ear phone use for social media or no social media in quiet work space area perhaps. Have some noise absorbing room dividers? Should be pretty easy to make?