A reader writes:

I have a coworker who recently had a baby boy about six months ago. Four or five times now, she has asked her babysitter to drive her son to our workplace during lunch because she misses him and wants to spend time with him.

Because of our work setting, employees’ family and friends are not technically allowed into the back areas of the facility where the break rooms are. My coworker will bring her son into the break room, meaning that he is in there with everyone else who is trying to eat lunch. She sometimes lets him sit on the table or touch things, or will ask people if they want to hold him. She also talks incessantly to him in a baby voice or makes silly noises at him repeatedly. I find this irritating, as the babysitter and baby take up some of the limited space we have in the room. Plus, all of the silly noises and voices make it difficult to have a conversation with someone else in such a small space.

These aren’t the standard, brief “bring my baby in to meet my coworkers for a few minutes” type of events. She will bring her baby into the break room to sit in her lap or on the table while she eats lunch for a good 20 to 30 minutes each time this happens.

I don’t understand why she can’t spend time with her son in her office if she desperately needs to see him so badly. No one else with young children who works there brings their children into the break room. However, I now feel like a terrible, cold-hearted person. Am I being totally unreasonable? Is there anything I can do about this? I don’t want to get her in trouble or come across as a baby-hating curmudgeon, but I’m getting frustrated with having to share the break room with someone’s baby on multiple occasions.

No, you’re not being unreasonable.

If this happened once or twice over the course of a year, then yeah, I’d say you were being a curmudgeon. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being a curmudgeon; I’m pretty curmudgeonly myself. But it’s still helpful to recognize when it’s happening.)

But four or five times in the space of … what, three months? It’s crossing over into clear “too much” territory, as well as self-centered parent territory, and I think it’s understandable to be annoyed.

But four or five times may not be enough to make it worth speaking up about it. I mean, in my opinion, a single lunch filled with the sounds of an adult speaking baby talk is too much, but I’m balancing that against the pain-in-the-ass factor of taking this on.

If it continues to happen or increases in frequency, I think you’d be in a stronger position to say something. Even then, though, you’ll have to decide if you’re willing to deal with the potential tension it’s likely to cause with your coworker, and possibly with anyone else who doesn’t mind the baby there and can’t understand why someone else might.

If you have other options for where you eat lunch, I might just use one of those on the days this happens.