I’ve gotten used to cell phones, and their position in our society (generally held close to the face of every third person one encounters, every other person if one is where youths congregate).
and, I’ve also gotten used to the myriad of fascinating ring tones said assholes select ( my personal fave was the cell that went off in a business meeting of ‘community big names’, that had the Mission Impossible theme. Sure, dude, you are, indeed, the man)
But can’t we all agree that there are, indeed some times and places where even the most self important should silence the buggers? and that one of these times and places would be at a private memorial service? and that should you, personally, have forgotten to silence yours that when the first one went off, you should check to make sure yours was on vibrate,too? How about when the second went off? The third? Fourth? Surely by the fifth?
If you’re too stupid to know how to silence it, I submit that you’re also likely to be too stupid to have a position where you simply** must ** be reachable every single second. Of course, if you were so important, you should have simply waited to pay your respects at the post service gathering. edited spelink
After my father died, some relatives and I were lined up outside the Funeral Director Slimebag’s office waiting for our appointment. There was a service going on in the immediately adjacent chapel/Parlor of Doom. My brother’s cellphone goes off with the thunderous chords of “Charge of the Light Brigade”.
I can understand how one will go off in a church service. I can understand the beeps that occur when your silencing the phone. But the third time it happens, especially when it’s during silent prayer, is just obnoxious.
I don’t care if you ARE a doctor or if your Gam-Gam is on her deathbed. The loathsome little devices can, in fact, be silenced so one doesn’t have to miss those precious phonecalls.
I was using my cel on a bus once and the woman seated in front of me started complaining I was being too loud. I never had any complaints before or since.
Should’ve said into the phone, “I dunno. Some woman acting like I’m yelling in her ear.”
It’s like with dogs. It’s not the cell phone, it’s the owner. I was in Apple Annie’s restaurant int Tulare one day. Three people came in and sat down at the table next to me. One guy immediately pulled out his cell phone and started a conversation that lasted a long time while his companions sat there and waited.
We have the technological capability to allow places like churches, funeral homes, etc. to automatically switch cell phones from ring to vibrate, for the time that they are within the building or vicinity.
But the manufacturers have chosen not to build this into their cell phones. Presumably, because there’s no money in it for them.
A friend and I have a deal. Whichever of us dies first the survivor has to ensure that the deceased’s phone is in the coffin. He is then expected to ring during the service.
Probably won’t happen though. Another friend and I had agreed that the survivor was to start fighting with the corpse and then when restrained say, “He started it.” At his funeral I had a laugh when I remembered the deal but it was a funnier idea 30 odd years ago.
I myself wonder why people even feel the need to have audible ringtones always in effect, and at what I’d consider to be unnecessarily high volumes. I have my phone on vibrate a good 99% of the time and I don’t miss calls. That’s right, when it’s in my pocket, I can feel it vibrate. And it doesn’t bother anyone. What a concept. Why the fuck is it that people need their ringer volume set to 11? I don’t care whether it’s an obnoxious ringtone or the default ringer that came with the phone. How fucking loud does it need to be and why is such obnoxious ringing a better substitute for a discreete vibrate that garners no attention? I suppose ladies can be excused if they have no pockets to put their phone in and are forced to carry it in a purse, but I see this as being more of an exception than the norm.
Am I the only person that manages to go about my cellular life with my phone set strictly to vibrate? I can’t help but think so most of the time.
Nope. I do, too. When I got my most recent phone, I set the ringtone to something I kind of liked, then thought to myself, “too bad I’ll never hear it” as I set the volume to zero and switched on the vibration mode.
I had a co-worker who had his go off during a wedding right as the couple were saying their vows. This was bad enough but he was the minister conducting the ceremony.
Do all cell phones nowadays have a vibrate feature? Maybe I’m completely retarded, but for the life of me I have not been able to find any way to set mine to vibrate. I always just turn it off when I want to make sure it doesn’t ring.
EDIT: NM, turns out I was completely retarded. I found the manual for the phone and it turns out there is a way, it is just not intuitive or accessible through any of the menus.
Also, what’s with people who hold the cellphone to their ear while the other person is talking, and then turn it by 45 degrees and just hold the mouthpiece in front of their face while they’re talking, like it’s a walkie-talkie? Those guys seem like self-important assholes to me.
The other assholes are the people who don’t realize that their particular phone’s vibrate function is as loud as a ringtone when the phone is jangling around with pens, staplers, a Palm Pilot and keys in their backpack. And the people who don’t realize how loud their texting is (the actual key-pressing, I mean–some people SLAM those things).
Can you tell I’m in college, BTW?
Nobody’s too unimportant to need a cellphone. My regular customer with a speech impediment, who seems to talk at a rate of 3 words per minute, has one; even the deaf mute has one, and she pretends to talk on it without realizing that the rest of the cafe only hears a loud, repeating series of almost animal-sounding vowel sounds. It’s actually kind of disturbing.
If it makes you feel any better, I’ve done this since high school. Although now that I think about it, when I downloaded some song ringtones on my free Internet-access trial back when I started my current cellphone plan in my senior year, I set my phone on both high ringer and vibrate outside of class. (Only because I want it to vibrate either way, and I can only set it to vibrate when the ringer is off or set on high. But high isn’t that bad with my phone.) My ringtones were “Float On” by Modest Mouse and “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand (hooray 2004!) and I think I just liked the novelty of having a song for a ringtone. Since that’s nothing new anymore, I wonder if the people who still do it just want to show off that they have the hottest new track on their phone. (Maybe this is a college thing, too.)
There was a british gorilla comedy show on Comedy Central a while back that featured a man yelling into a giant cell phone prop which was bigger than his body. He’d walk into a quiet place like a museum and scream “WHAT? I CAN BARELY HEAR YOU!” into this huge cell phone. Cracked me up. It got canceled after a few weeks, but I always think of that when I see one of those ringtone assholes. What was the name of that show?
Hee, hee. It’s new to me. I just got my first cell phone that supports mp3 ringtones. I made a clip of “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John and downloaded it to my phone. I’m proud of my PC-cell phone skillz.
As it was pointed out, though, it’s the user to blame, not the phone. I do have consideration for when I’m in a group of people and when it is not appropriate to have the ringer heard. In such situations, I just turn the phone off and let any calls go to voicemail.
When I left my phone on vibrate, I often managed to miss calls with my phone sitting on my desk under my nose! :o, so no, not everyone can manage with vibrate.
That said, I always switch to vibrate during meetings or other cases where my phone ringing would be even mildly rude. It’s not like if I miss a call WWIII is likely to erupt as a result :eek:. And I turn the damn thing off if it would be downright disrespectful of others if I were to answer (movie, concert, memorial service…) – so, as to the OP, yeah, I still hear you about those owners being assholes.
I just got my first cell phone that supports mp3 ringtones. I made a clip of “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John and downloaded it to my phone. I’m proud of my PC-cell phone skillz.