A 50-year-old woman says she’s worried she may have gone too far after asking a fellow diner at a high-end restaurant to turn her phone off speaker mode.
In a Reddit post, the anonymous woman writes that she and her husband took her mother and her mother’s partner to dinner at a four-star restaurant. Following the appetizer course, the diners at the table next to them — a middle-aged woman and a teenager — began speaking on a phone call, with the phone in speaker mode.
“The other tables around us were also occupied and people at those started turning toward her as the conversation was very loud,” the woman’s post reads. “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.”
At that point, other diners began asking if they could switch tables and the woman decided she had had enough.
“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.’ ”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
The woman on speaker responded back that if the person on the other end of the line were in the restaurant, the noise level would be the same, to which the poster 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.”
The post continues: “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.’ ”
Other Reddit users are adding their thoughts, with one commenter writing, “Speakers have different frequencies than voices. The moment that call is on speaker in public it becomes everyone’s phone call.”
Adds another: “I think the front of house did a great disservice in seating her while she was on a phone call. I would have told her I’d seat her when her discussion was finished, then waited 10 minutes and seated the next people in line.”
Read the full article here
