People’s behavior in public can be a problem.
Not everyone seems to respect space and boundaries.
This can be especially problematic in places like libraries and restaurants.
Some people don’t seem to have an “inside voice.”
And some people don’t care if they’re being disruptive.
This makes some conversations awkward.
Redditor swiss913 wanted to discuss her experience and get some feedback, so naturally, she came to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subreddit.
She asked:
“AITA for asking a woman to turn her phone off speaker at a high-end restaurant?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My (50 F[emale]), husband (52 M[ale]) took my mother and her partner out to dinner at a 4-star restaurant.”
“We had just finished our appetizers when the table next to us was seated, a middle-aged woman and a teenager.”
“As the woman walked by our table she had her cell phone in hand and I quickly realized she was on a phone call and it was on speaker.”
“The other tables around us were also occupied and people at those started turning toward her as the conversation was very loud.”
“The woman and the person on the call were essentially speaking to each other with raised voices.”
“Our entrees were brought out and despite several people around the woman just kept going with her conversation, phone propped up by her water glass while the teenager was on her phone.”
“Here is where I may have been the a**hole.”
“While we were eating.”
“A couple was seated on the other side of the woman and teenager.”
“They sat for a few minutes and when the server came to introduce himself they asked to be moved to a different table.”
“They clearly said it was because of this woman having a phone conversation.”
“We finished our entrees and were waiting to order dessert.”
“The teen had gotten up from the table.”
“I leaned over and said, ‘Excuse me. Would you mind taking the phone off speaker? It’s very disruptive to those around you. Several tables have been staring at you hoping you would do so.’”
“She responded back that ‘If she were sitting here in the restaurant you would be able to hear the conversation’ to which I replied, ‘I would certainly hope that you would not be speaking in raised voices if you were sitting two feet from each other at a table.’”
“She said ‘I’m turning it down.’”
“I said ‘Thank you because it is very disruptive.’”
“At this point, she says ‘Listen. I’m a grown-a** woman. This is over.’”
“I said nothing.”
“We had our dessert and left and as we were leaving she said loudly to the person on the phone, ok they are gone I’m turning this up so I can hear you.”
The OP was left to wonder:
“AITA for asking her to take the phone off speaker phone?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“If one is on their phone, NOT ON SPEAKER, and is talking at a normal speaking volume, that’s not a disruption.”
“When you have your phone turned all the way up in an already noisy environment, it causes shrill and high-pitched sounds to come out of the phone, plus you said the woman was talking loudly.”
“The staff definitely should have said something to her. NTA.” ~ Fearless_Lychee_6050
“A guy a few seats away from us at the cinema last night was doing talk-to-text for the first 15 mins of the film and kept open mouth sneezing in our direction, and it was really pissing me off.”
“Just as I went to say something, his phone rang, and he got up to answer, came back after about 10 minutes, sat for a minute, did another open-mouth sneeze, then left and didn’t come back.”
“I wish people like this would just stay home.” ~ solid_vomit
“NTA. That is rude of him to do it in his own home with someone else present, but would even be more rude to do it out in public.”
“Perhaps OP should have asked the waiter to speak to her.” ~ Beneficial-Year-one
“NTA, but I would have spoken to the manager and asked them to deal with it and point to the other table that asked to be re-seated.” ~ LowBalance4404
“What are these four stars you speak of?”
“Four stars on Yelp?”
“It sounds like she was on this loud call throughout your entire dinner service, so what like 45 minutes?”
“There is no way an actual fine dining establishment lets this stand.”
“It’s atrocious.”
“Speaking to the server or a host about it on no uncertain terms would put an end to it immediately.”
“Approaching the woman directly on your own should be unnecessary.”
“NTA, but your approach was ineffective.”
“Let the people being paid to create a fine dining experience fight that battle.” ~ underyou271
“Just want to mention that I was at a Michelin star restaurant in Toronto and the couple next to me decided to loudly FaceTime their toddler to tell it goodnight on speaker.”
“Small place, intimate environment.”
“None of the servers said anything.”
“I didn’t want to be that person and have to sit right next to them for the following 3 hours, so I did not confront them.”
“But they really did that s**t for 10 minutes.”
“Plus the wine pairing sucked.”
“I never went back.”
“I was actually at another Michelin star in Rome, and a couple with 2 kids was in the place, which only had 8 tables in the entire place.”
“The kids did really well through dinner but obviously started to get bored at the end.”
“It seemed like it took them forever to leave as the kids could only have been pretending to be pinball as they ran around.”
“But this was less annoying than that f**king face time.”
“HANG UP YOUR PHONE. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOU TALK!!” ~ jennyfromtheeblock
“That happened to me, and a date before, the offending woman was right next to me.”
“I started talking loudly and drowning out her.”
“She leaned over and said to me that she couldn’t hear the party on the phone. Could I talk lower?”
“I said no because if I Lowered my volume, I’d hear her conversation, and I didn’t want to hear her.”
“If she took it off speaker, then I would stop talking.”
“She said I was being rude, I reply, just like you are.”
“She got very offended and asked to move tables.”
“After she moved, I said thank God and had a very pleasant night.”
“Fight fire with fire, NTA.” ~ Even_Enthusiasm7223
“Ugh, I despise people who use speakerphone in public.”
“We GET IT, they think they’re more important than EVERYONE.”
“I remember I was on a bus one time and some lady was using speakerphone for like an HOUR.”
“When she got off, someone said, ‘There is a God,’ and we all laughed our a**es off.”
“Speakerphone is for PRIVATE calls, NOT for use in public unless there’s some rare exception. NTA.” ~ starksdawson
“I truly do not understand WHY people go on speakerphone in public.”
“Unless you are trying to include more than one person in the phone call, like my parents will put me on speakerphone when I call so that they can both hear me and talk… but they do that in the privacy of their own home.”
“For a one-on-one conversation, why would you even want to blast both sides of it across a public place?”
“I’d be so embarrassed even if we were talking about normal mundane things.” ~ Thesafflower
“NTA… and if I’d been the hostess at that restaurant, I wouldn’t have seated her.”
“That s**t is rude AF.”
“Stop talking on speaker in public.” ~ m33chm
“What kind of a high-end restaurant lets this even happen?”
“Absolutely NTA, I would’ve given it only a few minutes before talking to a server or a manager.” ~ sparethesympathy
“Absolutely NTA.”
“I can’t stand entitled people like that woman who has no regard or awareness for the other people orbiting around them.” ~ REDDIT
“NTA- I hate this so much.”
“There is something very different about people talking and the tinny voice coming from a phone.”
“But I just bought a couple of pairs of dead cheap headphones from a dollar store.”
“I’m gonna start handing them out.” ~ Fianna9
“This clearly was not a fine dining restaurant.”
“It would be a typical form for the restaurant to intervene immediately in a situation such as this.”
“NTA. The staff should have resolved this.” ~ LibrarySpiritual5371
“NTA. I have a problem with anyone on their phone with their volume max on speaker talking to somebody, playing a game, or watching a show.”
“There’s a reason why they have headsets.”
“I miss the people who are too damn inconsiderate they should have never been set.”
“And I know the restaurant workers can’t make that call, but it needs to be a policy at all restaurants.” ~ Future-Nebula74656
“NTA. My husband doesn’t use a speaker phone in public but he becomes so VERY loud on the phone, it’s like he thinks the person on the other end may be suddenly hard of hearing.”
“I’ve tried talking directly to him about it, I’ve tried hinting, I’ve tried pointedly annoyed looks and rolling my eyes, I’ve tried looking embarrassed and walking away until he’s finished… nothing gets through to him.”
“So I always secretly wish for a stranger to call him out in the hope that maybe someone else’s displeasure will mean something to him.” ~ Special_Wrap_1369
“Actually, the restaurant workers should have handled it before it became a problem.”
“Restaurants, high-end or not, have not been monitoring patron behavior in quite some time.”
“That is why I no longer give them my time or money.”
“So NTA.”
“The dining establishment staff and the disruptive, rude diners are the a**holes here.” ~ BiblioLoLo1235
“NTA. Assuming an honest retelling of events, I cannot see how OP could be at fault.”
“Potentially, the last line about ‘being very disruptive’ might have approached the line.”
“OP had clearly established the call was disruptive already and once the offender agreed to turn the volume down a simple ‘thank you’ might have been enough.”
“Reiterating the issue was not strictly necessary, but if delivered in the calm and respectful manner described, it seems like no insult was intended.” ~ Bartleby-Strange
“NTA… but also not the best way to handle it.”
“In our society, this unfortunately puts you at risk; someone who is selfish enough to be on their phone in a restaurant is not someone whose temperament I would want to test in a potential confrontation.”
“Better: Politely ask the staff to handle it.”
“They’re paid to handle disruptions (although I’m sure they aren’t paid enough).”
“You aren’t paid to handle it.”
“You’re paying to be there.”
“The establishment needs to stop this, and I’m surprised that they didn’t in a four-star restaurant.” ~ Grump_Curmudgeon
“NTA. I am a server, and I can tell you that if a couple more tables had complained, management would have done something.”
“Especially at that level of service.”
“Next time, say something to your server.”
“They are waiting for enough people to complain that it is addressed.”
“We hate that kind of behavior.” ~ Groovychick1978
“No. I would have got the waiter involved and told the staff to get her to finish her conversation outside.”
“Or to seat her elsewhere as it is destructive to everyone else.”
“NTA. But she certainly didn’t give a damn.” ~ Creepy-Brick-
“NTA. It’s good and healthy to directly tell someone when their behavior is unacceptable.”
“We don’t do enough of this as a society.”
“We need to enforce these basic social rules better and part of that is telling someone engaged in poor behavior that they need to put a stop to it.”
“If they refuse, you get a manager involved and get them thrown out of the restaurant.”
“Let’s have some basic social rules and mutual respect again.” ~ cascadia1979
“Before I got my new phone, I had to have my conversations in public on speaker cause the actual speaker was broken… I became my own nightmare.”
“HOWEVER, I would never have it on speaker in a restaurant and be obnoxious about it. NTA.” ~ Living_Print9408
“You are not only NTA, you are a f**king HERO.”
“You are my hero.”
“I want to be you.”
“I want to be your best friend.”
“I aspire to be you.”
“Keep on being you.”
“The world needs heroes like you.” ~ SoonerRed
“NTA. And I have straight out started taking straight-up fake calls into my phone to embarrass them.”
“Keep your stuff separate and away from me.”
“Like I don’t need to know that information.”
“Go away.”
“Make your calls outside.” ~ Solid_Volume5198
“NTA. However, you messed up with your comment of ‘thank you because it is very disruptive.'”
“She already agreed to do what you wanted, and she wouldn’t have gone off on you at the end if you had left it at ‘thank you.'”
“The last comment was just to jab at her to get your frustration out, not to solve any problem.” ~ Casscat04
“NTA… speakerphone people are the WOOOOORST.”
“They are rude AF and entitled as hell.”
“No one cares about your conversation, Debra; go have it somewhere else alone.”
“It’s also still rude if she sat and had the conversation not on speaker.” ~ Rabt_FTS
Reddit is in total agreement with you, OP.
This type of behavior is out of control these days.
You started out asking politely,y and you waited as long as you could.
Maybe next time call over a manager to handle it.
The other dinners were probably thrilled.