I went to lunch today with two coworkers. Both of them spent almost the entire drive to the restaurant on their cell phones. I saw two other drivers in traffic on their cell phones. At the restaurant the guy at the table behind us was yakking on his cell phone almost the entire way through his meal--and there were two other people at the table with him. After we finished eating, my friends both spent about five minutes text messaging people on their cell phones. As we left the restaurant, there were three people standing in the parking lot talking on their cell phones (all within about twelve feet of each other, all facing outward from some mystical cosmic central radiation point; it was like some sort of bizarre modernist performance art).
At the gym this afternoon one guy picked up his cell phone and made a call before he was even out of the locker room. In the grocery store and the liquor store, people were walking down the aisles, absentmindedly pushing their carts right down the middle of the aisle so nobody could pass, talking on their cell phones, in one case very loudly. I saw an older gentleman stand in front of the canned vegetables for a few moments before pulling out his cell phone and calling (presumably) his wife to ask her what she wanted. He told her what he was looking at and how much each brand cost.
I've made cell calls while driving (though I do at least feel guilty about it afterwards). I've made cell calls in stores and other places in public. I've never done so in a restaurant or while grocery shopping (though being single I don't have to ask for anyone's approval to decide what brand of canned tomatoes I want). I usually turn off my phone if it rings while I'm talking with friends, except when I'm on vacation and the cell phone is my leash to the office. So I'm not saying I'm perfect here. But I wonder, since cell phones have become so ubiquitous in modern life, has that changed our perception of what is rude and what isn't?
I didn't say anything, but I thought it was rude for my coworkers to be on the phone the whole way to the restaurant. I thought it was rude of the guy at the table behind me to be on the phone while he ate (rude both his lunch partners and the person on the other end of the phone; talking on the phone while you eat is like talking on the phone while you sit on the toilet. Nobody wants to hear that). I thought it was rude of my friends to text message after lunch, when civilized people would be engaging in conversation with the real people sitting right next to them.
I thought it was rude of the woman in the liquor to be talking so loudly, so that everyone in the whole store could hear her end of the conversation (which was pretty insipid anyway, so it might have been rude to the person on the other line, too). I don't think it was rude of the guy at the gym to place a call from the locker room, but I did think it was completely pathetic.
I think it was rude for the canned vegetable man's wife to send her husband shopping with so little clue what he should get and with, apparently, an expectation that he'll get exactly the right thing, that he had to call from the store. Why should he feel he has to do that? What would he have done twenty years ago when there weren't cell phones (at least not commonly available)? Would she have told him exactly what she wanted? Would she have just dealt with it if he'd bought something other than what she wanted if she couldn't tell him exactly? Would she have just gone shopping herself?
I think it's incredibly rude to be on the cell phone in an elevator with other people. But I think rudest of all is people who interrupt a face-to-face conversation with you to answer their cell phone without looking at the caller ID. All cell phones have caller ID. But a lot of people will answer the phone without looking at the ID, and when people do that while engaged in conversation with someone else, it's like they're saying, "I don't know who this is--it could be the bank calling to say they've reposessed my house--but I'm going to enjoy talking to them more than I enjoy talking to you."
So. Am I just a stick-in-the-mud? Am I too old fashioned for my own good? Or are cell phones really about the rudest piece of technology ever invented?
9 comments:
Well I’ve had a cell phone for 12 years (Damn it’s been that long.) and I work in IT ;notorious for cell ubiquity and use. Actually I don’t like talking on the phone that much. Most of the time I try to communicate the information quickly. Other than that I usually just end up listening to others talk to me. Anyway, I pretty much agree with you here. I look at my call ID before I answer. I try to remember to put the phone on vibrate. I don’t like answering when talking to others or eating, and if I have to I try to keep it short. I usually try to leave the room to talk. One thing I really find irritating is when someone answers the phone in the room in which a conversation or television watching is occurring, and they stay in the room talking loudly on the phone disturbing the other people in the room. I really dislike people that completely drop the conversation they are in to take seemingly unimportant calls. I dislike people that sit in restaurants talking on their phone too loudly. I’ve been party to the person text messaging after the meal while ignoring the others at the table. I don’t think that what’s considered rudeness with a cell phone has changed that much. I just think people don’t care any more. Their stuff is always more important anyway.
I guess that's true, about their stuff always being more important. In the office this morning before I had some music going while my troop and I worked. Another person came in, and we chatted about work, but the music was still playing and wasn't a bother. Then he made a cell phone call. Obviously my troop and I weren't involved in the cell phone call and went back to work and listened to the music.
And then--if he hadn't outranked me I would have hit him--he reached over and turned down my speakers to zero so he could hear the phone.
This was a lieutenant colonel, so I didn't say anything. Had it been anyone captain or lower I would have hit the roof. I can't believe how presumptious of his own importance that was. Emily Post would have had a coronary.
3 comments (can you tell I'm deployed with nothing to do?)
1. As usual your post is 90% right
2. Family is more important than friends so I will always answer the phone from my wife (especially since I have little kids who often have serious accidents) even if I'm talking to my best friend and certainly if I'm talking to a stranger or in front of strangers.
3. Any married man knows you come home from the store with EXACTLY what your wife wants. You go to multiple stores to find it if you have to, so the man was infact saving gas because I imagine what she wanted was not in that store. When you do whatever it takes for someone it is called love!
Technology is not rude the people who use it are rude! (ok 4 comments but give me a break I'm getting home later than I thought!
--O'B
I can't believe he actually turned down your speakers. Well no I can believe it. I've had people take a call on their cell phone, while I was watching a very interesting program on The History Channel. I was straining to hear the program over their loud conversation when the person turned and snipped angrily, "Would you turn that down?" I gave a look of complete amazement at what they had asked. Lets break it down. I was watching a program, that I don't know if there is a rebroadcast of, on a very heavy device that is chained to the wall by power and signal cables. The other person started a conversation at a later time on a device made specifically to be small and portable. You do the math. I had begun my action first, and I couldn't very well take it with me. I usually try to leave the room if I have a phone call. I don't do it because my calls are private. I do it to be try to be courtious to the others in the room.
I agree that family comes first and I almost always take a call from family. Either that or I let it go to voicemail and quickly listen to the message to see if it is an emergency. But that's for important things not for describing the drive to work, what your office mate had on, the quality of what you ate for lunch, that you got blisters from your new shoes, or that the dog is barking next door. I'm listening to hear if you cut your toe off with an ax. I usually ask for the situation and expect to be able to judge it's seriousness in the first minute. I take action from there, but then I am a male. I've told family that I was in the middle of something and that I would call them back for non-time-dependent items. Usually that was about a computer doing something weird.
That's the main reason I don't call many people. I don't want to bother them for trivialities. Besides, I prefer face to face communication. My point of view may sound weird, but I am an engineer.
Hmmmm... Other people's cell phone use just doesn't bother me. I call friends when I'm on the road. It takes the better part of an hour to drive to my parent's house, and that's the perfect length of time for a hi-how-r-u call to girlfriends. When someone calls me and I happen to be at the store, I'll take the call, but it's not like I talk loudly. And yes, I've certainly called people from the grocery before...usually my mother, to discuss the finer points of cake flour, whippng cream, or light vs. dark brown sugar. Cakes are tricky things! Sometimes tech support is required. I think the only thing that bothers me about cell phones is how other people sometimes EXPECT you to be reachable, no matter where you are. That, I can't stand.
That's the other half of the equation, isn't it? The real problem with cell phones, the problem that makes me think of them as rude little devices, is that they make other people expect to be able to reach you when, really, they have no reason to expect that.
Before I had a cell phone, if I wasn't at home when I got a call, no big deal. I'd get a message on an answering machine, and I'd return the call when I could. Now that I have a cell phone, if I turn it off to go to a movie or choose not to answer it because I'm on the can or driving on I-275, when I finally do get the message the person on the other side is usually bitchy. Where are you? Why aren't you answering your phone?
It's these calls I never return. If I choose not to answer my phone it's not because I don't want to talk to you--it just might be because I can't. Your ability to call me at any hour and wherever I might be does not impute any requirement to me that I should answer that call. That's what voicemail is for.
This is what technology does to us, in certain cases. Because it makes new things possible, we start to expect as normal things were once impossible or, at any rate, absurd. This is why people drive so fast and are always so harried these days, because everyone is expecting everything from them right away. It's sad, really.
And I have to reply to O'B--of course you come home from the store with exactly what your wife wants. Damn straight. I'm single and even I know that.
But if you didn't have a cell phone, what would you do then? Would you do the best you could and get along? Would your wife take care to provide an exact description of what she wanted? Because you sure wouldn't have run off in search of a pay phone to describe two different cans of peas to her to ask which she wanted. You'd have taken the time to clarify that before, or she'd have taken the time to give you clear instructions. Or you'd improvise, and compromise, and your wife wouldn't get upset about which brand of peas you bought. Now that you have a cell phone you don't have to think to do any of these things, and in that I really think something is lost.
Again you are right...you are single! Just kidding you will make a great husband to some lucky girl but still be grounded in your single roots.
The reality is this, to me, peas not important. Destin oinment for the tender baby's behind, important. I learned this early on when I brought home Creamy Desitin because they were out of the other stuff. My wife is very understanding so we used it. The toxic baby poo pulled the Creamy Desitin right off his tender behind then the poo sat on his bum. He proceeded to get a diaper rash. Baby's with diaper rash are crying baby's, single folk don't like crying babies so you have to shut them up, they won't shut up so you have to leave dinner early, etc. etc (sorry had to put the single thing in there again). My very kind wife never said "told you so" but I knew next time go to a different store if they are out. Now one man's Destin is another man's peas. Maybe his inlaws were coming over and his mother in-law loves a certain brand they didn't have. I think it was an "out of peas" issue which then became a "which brand do I get" issue, not a lack of previous discription from the wife. After all he was older and most likely has been buying peas for his bride for years. But I don't know I haven't walked in his shoes.
As we all know when you get married you have certain roles. These roles aren't defined until you define them in the early months and years of your marriage. Often my role becomes "gatherer". From trial and error I know what is important to her when shopping and what is not, but if it's important out comes the cell phone. Yes, before cell phones, I drove to a payphone on the way to another store to explain whatever the situation was and came home with the correct item, but I'd rather not do it any more when I have the cell phone. So improvise, yes. Compromise, yes. Any man married as long as me knows very well how to do both with his wife (the others are divorced or at least very unhappy). But not when it is important to her. So I guees next time you see that man ask him how important peas are to his wife and maybe he'll say "just as important as Desitin used to be when the kids were younger" or maybe he'll be rude and ignore you while he answers his cell phone.
You do have me thinking about cell phone use, and Hamas and pottery and for that I love you website! You are a genius and I've seen how fast you type so keep it coming.....at least until I redeploy.
--O'B
See, there has been a reason I haven't bothered to get a cell phone until -- well, I still haven't, but now it's out of sheer laziness. I actually want one now, but Brad's cousin works for Cingular at a mall in Charlotte, which requires figuring out when I have Abbey-free time enough to drive to said mall and ...
I recently had a Twilight Zone-ish cell phone incident. May not seem so to the technologically hip, but it was to me. My 13-year-old niece forgot her cell phone one day. She called her Nana after school, presumably from another friend's phone, to inform her of this and ask her to make the 30+ minute one-way trip to her house to get the phone and bring it to school. This was presumably important because my niece had to be able to contact her mother to tell her when to pick her up from school. I had just dropped Abbey off for the afternoon, and when I looked properly stunned and asked why couldn't she just use a pay phone, I was told this small private school didn't have one. I found that truly amazing. They just expect all kids to have cell phones? This is a 5th-12th school, these kids are there all hours. I recall frequent use of the pay phone after band practice. Of course, this didn't seem to phase my mother-in-law. After much debate and inability to get ahold of my sister-in-law (gee, how handy those cell phones are when you need them), it was decided that I should take Nana's cell phone to my niece at the school, which is right behind my house.
Two things here: 1) Why was it such an ordeal to come to the conclusion that I should take the phone to her, adding approximately 5 minutes to my day, rather than wasting more than an hour of my mother-in-law's? 2) If my niece borrowed a friend's cell phone to call in the first place, why couldn't she do it again later? Was she going to be standing all alone in a forest or something? When I got to the school, it was still teeming with sporty types. Of course, the answer to this one is she's 13 and wanted to talk to her boyfriend, but this wasn't accepted by the other adults in question and it was deemed VITAL that she have a phone. A very counter-productive incident all around.
On the marriage topic, I must say that I smile and thank my dear husband when he returns from the occasional grocery run. I try not to care about brands, though I admit when variety is in error, that's a tough one. And I confess to expressing my flabbergastedness when he returned from Wal-Mart with an aluminum $12 coffee pot, saying it was the only kind they had. I know Wal-Mart is a scary place at times, but come on, guys, explore just a little!
And whenever I finally join the cellular age, everyone feel free to call me out if I ever call while driving. I hate that, despise that, think it's dangerous and will no doubt fall into the trap someday. But I don't want to, so please launch the h-word at me at will!
Several points.
I have witnessed what happens when cellphone-less husband arrives with wrong size or brand of sour cream. Cellphone-less husband drives his bottom back to the store and buys the correct one. If excuse is "they were out of that one", cellphone-less husband drives to a different store. Dad still hasn't figured out what brands mom wants, but he's still the "go get it" man in the house. Go figure. The cell phone has saved him gas, driving time, and probably a few gray hairs.
This is how I think of it. If I am in a situation where talking to a second party would be acceptable, then I can use the phone. I drive the grocery cart and car equally well using a hands free device. I use as much energy on the conversation as I would if there was a second person shopping with me or in the passenger seat. In heavy traffic, I often ask the other person in the car to hush while I figure out the roads-- likewise if I'm on the phone I warn my partner that I may hang up if things get to difficult.
If two people talking would interrupt other people's relaxation (or listening pleasure), then I do the same thing I'd do if it was an actual second person-- I leave the area to have my conversation. I do not have conversations during movies, in church, or in libraries. I don't talk with friends on my phone at work. But these are places I wouldn't be actively talking to someone if they were actually sitting there.
It's not rude to sit at a table in a restaurant and have a cell phone conversation, presumming it's at an acceptable conversational level. However, talking to someone on a cell phone when you are with someone else IS rude, cause you are leaving them out of a conversation.
All in all, my cell phone is my link to my friends. It allows me to travel and still keep in touch. It allows me to feel closer to family and friends. We've all had "rude" stories. But put it in perspective-- who has sat at a restaurant and had a really loud mean customer next to them? Who has passed a family spread out across the grocery store aisle while you wait patiently for them to realize that you would like to get by? Cell phones are the invisible person standing next to the caller-- common sense must be used. Too bad it's in short supply.
(Ducking because I know someone's going to be blasting me about the calling and driving-- but you ALL have received calls from me while driving!)
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