Sometimes I regret setting up lunch meetings in restaurants. The crowds, the din, the clanging dishes and glasses are definitely not conducive to having a conversation without screaming. I notice that most restaurants don’t have any sound absorbing materials to help stifle the noise. The best time to schedule a lunch meeting is after lunch. Makes sense?
The other day I had a 12:30 pm meeting in a popular Scottsdale restaurant that has an extensive gluten-free menu. The place wasn’t too crowded and the noise was at a minimum until these 5 guys and a woman took a table a few away from us. These people starting talking so loud to each other that I couldn’t hear anything but them. Their laughing and talking was at the volume that would have been expected at a stadium or a rock concert, not a small, quiet eating establishment.
Several times I turned around to actually see what these loudmouths looked like. Well, they did look normal; quite large-boned, middle aged, happy people. They either didn’t care that they were disrupting everyone or they never heard of using their “inside voice.” If they thought that other people cared what they had to say, they were wrong.
The louder they got, the louder I had to scream in my meeting. I started to read the lips of the people at my table because there was no way I was hearing what they had to say.
People who have no clue about what volume to use in public should learn to whisper or stay home. They don’t seem to have any consideration for the others sitting in their vicinity. Apparently they were never taught that the world does not revolve around them.
