Would You Sit at a Saved Table?

[stashbin]

No reason in the world to feel bad. You expressed a viewpoint I was completely clueless about. Now I know, but sadly I must tell you it probably won't stay in my brain long enough for me to recognize that situation next time. Forgive me & my fellow oblivious cohorts who don't factor that in, we're not bad, we're just viewed that way sometimes.

 

[Kallista]

Awe..now I feel bad! I'm sorry I used that as an example but let me explain without too much TMI: If a large bathroom is empty and I need to do #2 I will purposely go to the back corner (if clean with paper) to do my business. But it always seems someone comes and sits right next to me when there are like 15 to 20 empty stalls. Maybe it's just me, but if I go into a large bathroom with 15 empty stalls, and I see feet in the far corner, I know what they are doing and I avoid.
Hope this explains.

ETA: And I don't think this makes someone self centered and rude. Just like I don't think saving seats is self centered and rude. I just think some people don't think about things like that as bothering someone and it just happens.

They're not rude. You're too self-conscious. People aren't paying attention to you all the time. They're thinking about their own stuff. It's very high maintenance to think that people should inspect a bathroom for other users and consider their preferences before choosing a stall. You should worry less about other people and about what other people are doing.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Tables for a concert? Was their food served? I don't get it.

As for what this woman did. If it were me, and you told me when I tried to sit you saved the whole table, I'd probably roll my eyes and move on. If you didn't tell me when I sat down, but "hinted at it" by talking about saved seats to your kids, I might not have budged at that point simply out of being hardheaded.


As for "saving seats" in general, I find it irritating when two or three people are sitting in a row in our high school auditorium and they say they are using like eight seats. Tough. if there are that many of you, should have all waited outside until at least half of you had arrived. If you were worried about not having room for all of you, you should have been there early.

The idea of "I don't know how many seats" is ridiculous to me. Either know for sure, or don't try to save seats.

 

[stashbin]

They're not rude. You're too self-conscious. People aren't paying attention to you all the time. They're thinking about their own stuff. It's very high maintenance to think that people should inspect a bathroom for other users and consider their preferences before choosing a stall. You should worry less about other people and about what other people are doing.

Maybe you're right about this. Maybe my thinking is that everyone who happens to HAVE to do #2 in a public restroom actually hates to have to do it and tries to sneak to the corner to do it. (Like me)
I am well aware that some folks just don't care. But a bathroom full of empty stalls? I just naturally go to one that's a couple of stalls down from the feet.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Now that I read more, the fact that there were backpacks on the table but at one point NOBODY there is really, really, irritating. I mean, A LOT. Your grandkids put their backpacks down on a table, and you expect people to understand the whole table is being "saved", when there wasn't a single person at the table?

 

[msjprincess]

Now that I read more, the fact that there were backpacks on the table but at one point NOBODY there is really, really, irritating. I mean, A LOT. Your grandkids put their backpacks down on a table, and you expect people to understand the whole table is being "saved", when there wasn't a single person at the table?

ITA

It's no different than the chair hogs on cruise ships and resort pools

 

[NHdisneylover]

Maybe you're right about this. Maybe my thinking is that everyone who happens to HAVE to do #2 in a public restroom actually hates to have to do it and tries to sneak to the corner to do it. (Like me)
I am well aware that some folks just don't care. But a bathroom full of empty stalls? I just naturally go to one that's a couple of stalls down from the feet.

and it never occurs to me to look for feet at all So I would not have any idea you were there or not unless all the doors were closed and i had to look for feet to make sure I was going into an empty stall.

 

[ols386]

When I go into a public restroom I try to choose a stall that has no feet on either side of it, but sometimes that's not possible, so I'll just go into whatever is available.

 

[LovableGluttons]

It would be great if everyone reading this thread vowed not to save seats in the future using stuff. If sitting together is that important, please leave a human being with the seats to tell seat searchers that the seats are reserved.


Otherwise, those seats you are trying to save are fair game!

 

[kaytieeldr]

In a full house, I'm right there with you on both scenarios. That being said, if there were other options, I'd definitely take the empty chair/table over the one with all the random crap piled on it. Life's too short to haggle over what some stranger thinks is their "right" to a saved spot.

But it wasn't a full house when the OP arrived, she admits there were entry of empty tables. Her party could easily have moved to one of those - yes, despite the table with a few items and a stranger being 'their' table.

She even says that once she realized her son's girlfriemd's kids weren't coming, she would have 'allowed' others to sit in the empty seats. How in the world is THAT reasonable, or fair to a concertgoer who arrived earlier than the OP and her party but whom they tried to intimidate into moving to an apparently worse seat?

 

[kaytieeldr]

Okay, I should have said "potential whole table full of people to move", since everyone wasn't there yet and I didn't know if DS's fiance was bringing her girls too, sorry.



There was no butt to put into a chair when the table was saved. The grandkids put their things on the table to save it, then they had other duties to tend to before the concert started. My Mom, DD and I got there at 6:30 (concert started at 7:00). There were maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot at that time, very few people in the actual auditorium (thus the reason for many open tables still) and we stopped to hug the grandkids and speak to their Mother first, then I happened to notice the woman sitting at the table and we went over after that to sit down.

Bluntly - first come, first served; you snooze, you lose; be there or be square... The items holding seats for you marked, it appears, four seats maximum. That's the number of seats 'reserved' for you, not the whole table. Speaking of butts in seats, that woman to whom you were so rude had her but in the seat. Technically, that made it her table since she's a living, breathing person - while bookbags and drinks are just...things. Sounds like she was pretty polite to you, all things considered.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I wouldn't sit at a saved table unless there were no other spots available and I would have asked if we could share.

But the other woman sat there first. It would have been really hard to get any kind of response from a bookbag, and only three or four of the seats had stuff at them. She sat in an empty and unmarked chair and saved one seat, which she was there to alert people to.

 

[kaytieeldr]

So, if you were having a real life conversation with someone, you would never mention something that they had said/done in the past? You wouldn't look for/discuss patterns of behaviour? To you, doing so would be bullying? I don't see what is unfair about looking at patterns of behaviour and I definitely don't see it as bullying.

Seriously? My siblings and I have conversations like that all the time. I hear it among some of my coworkers, and a couple of happily married couples I know... bullying? Really? More like familiarity.

 

[Deb in IA]

Hey, has anyone seen the OP?

 

[Mermaid02]

Hey, has anyone seen the OP?

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm.............. no.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Oh, I should mention I think it's great so many of you attended the concert. In our district, the attendance for concerts drops as the kids move from elementary to middle and then to high school. It's really sad.

 

[SaraJayne]

Hey, has anyone seen the OP?

 

[jrmasm]

Hey, has anyone seen the OP?

Maybe she's saving seats for next year's concert.

 

[Deb in IA]

Oh, I should mention I think it's great so many of you attended the concert. In our district, the attendance for concerts drops as the kids move from elementary to middle and then to high school. It's really sad.

That's too bad.

We went to our son's high school spring choir concert last night. It was combined with the 7th and 8th grades, so about 100 kids in that choir, plus about 50 in the high school choir.

The place was SRO. It was packed!!!

It helps that our choir program is really strong, and they have a fantastic director. They recently won their Large Group choir contest with top scores, so they are really good!

P.S. And NO, I did not save seats - and DS did not "mark" any with his backpack. In fact, I saw no backpacks at all as "seat savers". Only bodies in chairs.

 

[Tinker'n'Fun]

I read the whole thread, and yes I would sit there and so would my family members who were with me.

When my daughter was a freshman, I couldn't understand why the last three rows of the auditorium were alway saved by the school. We usually sat around 10 rows back, never saved seats and enjoyed the show. It turns out the first row was reserved for any senior parent with up to 3 per student. The ushers would ask which student they were there for. After that there was a strict no saving rule. Putting a coat for your husband/wife was not considered against the rules, but you could not do it for the whole family. The ushers were trained to sit people and if something was off ask the person why 6 coats were in a row and where the people were. If within 5 minutes those seats were not taken, the usher would sit other people there and wait for the owners. The owner were moved to the saved last three rows of the auditorium. Rules are such that, RULES!