Which leads me to a mini side rant. If you’re going to use your hands-free phone please watch where you point your eyeballs! Don’t make eye contact with me while talking to someone else. My ego is fragile enough without being embarrassed by trying to answer people that weren’t talking to me in the first place. At least regular cell phones offer a visual cue (hand to ear) to clue a person in to the fact that you’re talking to someone on the other side of the ether. Sheesh.
riv
I’m sure everyone understands the difference between life-and-death emergencies and inconvenience. The problems I have with Rick’s statement are
Need does not exclusively mean life or death emergency- It might not cause anyones’s death if I can’t reach my husband to tell him he has to pick up the kids because I can’t make it, but it doesn’t mean I don’t need to do it.
Life-and-death emergencies are not exclusive to doctors, and cell phones are not limited to receiving calls. How does one call for an ambulance in a place with no phones (such as the large parks where I spend a lot of time while my kids play sports)?
How many doctors really need a cell phone for a life-or-death emergency? If I have that sort of emergency. I’m not going to call my doctor’s answering service to have them call him on the cell phone. I’m going to the emergency room, probably by ambulance
You and RickJay may be as accessible as you need to be without carrying cell-phones. Doesn’t mean everyone is. Since I have children, I need to be more accessible than I needed to be before. I have also spent nearly all of my working life in jobs where I often don’t have access to a phone to either make or receive calls (Field work with clients who often don’t have phones in neighborhoods where working pay phones are uncommon). Sure, I got along with a cell phone before I could afford one, but so did doctors get along with them before they existed.
Doreen
You know, most cell-phone users aren’t annoying, or “cell phone geeks” or whatever. It’s just that the minority of jerks tends to be more noticeable. Sort of like everything else.
That being said, I hate cell phones. Hatehatehate them. Want them to melt into carcinogenic piles of oozing liquid plastic and silicon. But that’s just my problem.
Question, though–what’s more annoying, the person who has a cell phone, or the person who calls for no reason at all.
Case in point: I was riding home on a train one day. The man behind me has his cell phone ring. It’s his wife. She’s mad because it rained that morning, and he didn’t close her car window even though he saw it open. He said that he woke her up to do it. She said he didn’t. He finally apologizes.
I swear, like five minute later, he’s on the phone again (I don’t remember if it rang or not). They’re discussing what they want for dinner. They decide to pick up some cold cuts.
Ten minutes later, his phone rings. His wife’s at the store. She wants to know what kind of cold cuts he wants. He definately didn’t want bologna. I think he wanted pastrami.
Now, I didn’t notice the conversations of ANYONE else on the train. But he was speaking at a heightened volume, and his ringing cell phone drew attention towards him. Additionally, neither he nor his wife could complete what they wanted to say in one phone call.
Whether the person has the right to do this or not, it’s annoying as hell.
Here’s my cell phone bugbears: [list=1]
[li]“Jaunty” phone rings[/li]I don’t really want to be jerked from my reverie because someone thinks that it is funny for their phone to play the William Tell Overture at incredibly loud volumes. My cell phone vibrates and lets off its ring very quietly. This has never been insufficient for me to tell a call is coming in. I don’t think you really need your ring to be that loud and neither do you.
[li]Mobile phone obsessions[/li]It’s just a tool, people. Do we really have to spend all evening discussing them? I don’t care if you have one this size of a postage stamp or if you can run full Excel spreadsheets on them. It’s for phoning people. No, mine isn’t “shit” because I don’t want to continuously upgrade to the latest overpriced toy. It was a present and I see no need to spend any money to get another one.
[li]Ignoring friends and family[/li]Someone is out for an evening to catch up with friends. The mobile phone gets placed on the table. It rings - not a vital call by a long shot. Does the receiver of the call say, “Sorry, can’t talk now - I’m busy. Catch up later. Bye!” Like bollocks they do. That’s it - they’re out of the conversational loop for the next fifteen minutes.
You wouldn’t just abandon people who have come to see you if you happened to see someone you knew in the restaurant. Why the hell do so just because it is a phone call? Call back later dammit![/list=1]Thanks, I’m done now.
pan
mine stays in my purse, and if it doesn’t ring loudly, I can’t hear it. I was at Walmart once and my husband called me 12 times to tell me to get something and I didn’t hear it ringing.
If I’m doing something when I get a call, I tell them I’ll call them back. Thanks for making assumptions though.
Who the hell was making assumptions about you Opal? This is exactly what I mean about you overreacting.
If you tell them that you’ll call back, that means you’re doing exactly what I said was the appropriate thing to do. Hmm - not much criticism of you there, is there?
And if your phone rings at the level you need in order to be able to hear it - well, I guess that means you aren’t in category one either, eh? You know - the category of people who have their phone ring so fucking loudly that people can hear it in Arkansas.
Don’t take things so goddamned personally - especially when they are explicitly not about you. I own a mobile phone too - do you think that I am ranting about myself? Or do you think that just I take issue with some people who do what I am ranting about? It’s not all about OpalCat.
pan
Oh boy. Well, I admit that I’m rather…um…nerdy about my cell phone in the sense that I keep up on when 3G technology will be coming out, what phones are GPS enabled, WAP enabled, etc…And I do enjoy talking about the technology.
That said, I also think that there are some really simple manners that get somewhat tossed to the side with respect to cell phone use.
I think part of the reason that this happens is that, oddly enough - it’s this weird…“cell phone culture.” If everyone at the table has a cell phone and it rings, I don’t think they mind (as much as someone who doesn’t have/has never had a cell phone) if the call is answered. But before I got a cell phone, I went out on a DATE and this girl answered a call at dinner. I was shocked and couldn’t believe how rude it was. Because I distinctly remember that feeling, I’m pretty conscious of how it makes present company feel.
Some good rules might be:
Get a decent enough phone (if you can) that you don’t have to raise your voice to be heard on the other end.
Consider your present company like a customer at your store and the phone is ringing - give them some priority over the phone call. Personally, I check the number to see who is calling (almost all cell phones have caller ID) and only answer calls from my mother and SO, if that. Both know to use the pager function on my telephone if it is a true emergency - otherwise, leave me a voicemail.
Don’t turn your ringer on HIGH if you’re wearing it on your hip. It’s jarring. Better yet, if you can feel it vibrating and you have that option, do that.
If your phone has the ability to turn off the ringer immediately, do that. I HATE when someone’s phone rings and they decide not to answer it and THEY LET IT KEEP RINGING! ARGH!!! Turn off the damn ringer! When my phone rings, I immediately hit a side button to turn off the ringer. I can still answer the phone, it just silences the noise.
Well, that’s what comes to mind now. Please add as you see fit. 
Tibs.
To clarify the OP a bit: I’m not criticizing all those who use headsets, only those who try to show it off- using it unnecessarily, etc.
Hey, way to fly off the handle! Guess you were just demonstrating that “overreacting” thing.
If you don’t mean to include everyone, don’t make your little rant directed at everyone. Just a little tip. Have a nice day!
I don’t think it is rude to answer the phone on a date or whatever, as long as you just acknowledge who it is and either take a quick message or arrange to talk later. But then, I have a kid, so that sort of changes the realm of possibilities for me. I’m also one of those people who ALWAYS answers the phone at 3am… a lot of people ignore late calls, but I figure if they’re calling at 3am it must be important.
I don’t think my phone has an option of turning off the ringer if you don’t answer it…
:::goes to sit in the kabbes patch with kabbes::: 
Me, too! Me, too!
I have the basic Nokia phone that is rather popular, but I don’t have a popular “tune”. I use one called “Happy Return,” which is sort of a scale, five notes up and five notes down. I keep it set low. I’m too cheap to buy a vibrating battery.
I have 2 or 3 games on my phone but I’ve never bothered figuring out how to play them. If I’m bored, I always have a book with me to read. I didn’t bother to get text messaging. I have no real need for it. I don’t need to do spreadsheets or day-planner stuff. I don’t need stock quotes or any of that crap. I just want it to make phone calls.
I find it amusing (in a pathetic sort of way) to see people out in public with someone else (a spouse or SO or friend or group of friends), and they’re all on cell phones. You see this in the mall quite a bit; a group of teen girls, all together, but all on cell phones. Rather sad: a couple at a restaurant, both on cell phones. Turn them off and talk to each other! :rolleyes:
I do have the hands-free earbud thing, but I just use it in the car, so I can keep both hands on the wheel like a good citizen. I’m not on the phone that much in the car (or any time) that much anyway. Nine times out of ten, it’s my hubby calling, with urgent life-or-death questions like, “Whatcha doing, honey?” or “So, what’s for dinner?”
Hurrah! That makes two of us. Soon, with all due counter-revolutionary zeal, we shall take over the network.
Who wants some?
pan
What is your definition of ‘using it unnecessarily’?
Just so I cant be called a hypocrite because of my hatred of certain ringtones, I have removed all tones from my phone. It now just vibrates.
No Twisty, that’s a vibrator. You’re not getting them mixed up again are you? You know what happened last time you did that. As I recall she played Beethoven’s ninth for a week.
pan