There is a thread right now over in Talking Broadway’s All That Chat about cell phones (the bane of the theatre’s existance), including this loverly post:
I think the OP’s friend is very rude.
My SiL does the same. One reason we’ve stopped going to her house unless we’ve been specifically invited and we’re sure there will be other people there is that she’ll do this the whole time. She’s a doctor: office rules at local hospitals and health centers state that on-duty personnel must switch off personal cells. She hates this, but really, if I was at the doctor and she interrupted my examination to yap to her friend about the freaking weather I’d make a ruckus that would be heard in the next province!
I once had an interviewer do this in the middle of an interview. Three times. I sent her supervisor an email about it. I realize theirs is the kind of placement company where job-seekers are seen as little more than beggars, but really!
I had a boyfriend who did this. He answered the phone EVERY time it rang, even on dates. And I don’t mean he’d answer it, then say “I’m busy, I’ll call you back”, I mean he answered it and had a full conversation every single time. I would often find myself sitting at dinner with him listening to conversations, or sitting in bars alone for half an hour at a stretch while he conducted his conversation outside “where he could hear”.
I finally told him that I found this unsettling and sort of inconsiderate. He reacted with shock and annoyance. After all, why keep a cell phone if you can’t ALWAYS answer it?
Sigh.
There is a story (probably an urban legend) abut the woman who forgot to turn off her cell phone at a funeral and so of course it rang. Her ringtone supposedly was DING! DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD.
I have a different suggestion for next time this happens.
As your friend chats on her cellphone, take out your own phone and call her. If she’s as oblivious as she seems, it probably won’t be obvious to her that it’s you, and she’ll use her call-waiting to switch over to the call. When she answers say, “Hi! I figured this would be the best way to get to actually talk to you today!”
In my experience, the winner of the “Rudest Cellphone User” goes to a woman who was talking on the phone while standing in line at a grocery store, waiting to check out. I pulled my cart up behind her, and she shooed me away with a gesture as if trying to get a pesky animal to leave. While making the shooing gesture, she said “Can’t you see I’m on the phone? I need some privacy here.”
This narcissistic nitwit thought she had the right to have a private checkout lane at the grocery so that she could gab on the phone without being overheard.
pinkfreud, I had a similar experience in a coffee house once. A friend and I were talking. At the next table some self-important yahoo (we’ll call him Bonzo)was yakking away on his cell phone. It was a business call, as far as I could tell. We were trying to ignore him, and continue our conversation. We were not being loud. In fact there were several people being louder than us.
Suddenly I’m being tapped on my back. I turn around and Bonzo is shushing me. He gave me the “I’m on the phone. Do you mind?” I was floored for a moment. But then I realized something. If this conversation was so important, I was missing out. So I decided to join in. I responded to every utterance he made, whether it actually fit the conversation or not. I started with some basic lines:
“Really?”
“You don’t say?”
“I don’t think that’s right.”
Bonzo gave me a nasty look, tried to shush me more, and continued with his call. So I stepped it up.
“BITCHIN’!”
“FUCK YEAH!”
“You tell that bastard!”
At which point he realized that I was not going to give up, and left. It was a good thing for him, as my next line was going to be:
“Fer cryin’ out loud, just tell him you slept with his wife already!”
Sad and Deranged, include me amongst the people who say this person is really rude and thoughtless.
This has happened unfortunently.
Setup:
A gathering of family for Thanksgiving.
Eight cell phones laying around not on the owner’s person.
All cell phones using music at full volume for a ringer.
Leads to:
Having the damn things go off during group games, dinner, and conversations.
Having crappy ringtones drown out everybody’s voices until somebody gets to the cell phone.
Having multiple phones going off one after another.
Having a room full of people expected not to play the game or talk during a chat session.
Die uber cacophony of a ringtone extravaganza:
Over a period of half an hour, having to listen to concurrent cell phone ring tones going off all around you at full volume, while everybody is yelling to “Listen to this ringtone I’ve got.”
Nobody listening to the others yelling listen.
Personal ramifications:
I have a super big headache.
My ears hurt from the volume of noise.
I have to leave the house, before I scream “Shut the fuck up!”
I withdraw to my room for the rest of the day.
My Christmas wish list:
A cellphone jammer.
A dog that does one trick. He grabs all cellphones in sight and flushs them down the toilet when nobody is watching. I know some dogs could be tought this trick.
Movies are already banned from family get togethers at my house, because it happens so seldom that we get together. One or two movies you can watch at home and the day is done, and nobody’s had interaction and up dates. I would love to stop the cell phone crap too.
Carl Corey, that was priceless! It’s been a less-than-stellar couple of days in my world, and I really needed that gutbuster. So thanks for being so BITCHIN, dude! 
I wish I had the balls to do that kind of stuff, but I’m a lover (okay, in that parallel universe–but still!), not a fighter, and I prefer to keep my pretty face pretty. 
I was once in a military briefing given by a General who prefaced his speech with “I will now give everyone 30 seconds to turn off their cell phones and pagers. If one goes off while I am speaking, I will consider it disrespect and I will give you an Article 15 (Non-Judicial Punishment) for it.”
Must be nice.
Heh. I was on an airport shuttle bus with an old man in the back who literally repeated the combination to something TEN TIMES. Damn, if I only knew what he was referring to.
Speaking of which, I guess I understand a quick call when the plane lands to let your loved one know you didn’t die in a fiery crash. But “We just landed! I’ll call you when I get my bags!” might be overkill.
You know what? They’re just telephones. Yes, it’s nice to be able to carry them around, but at the end of the day, it’s just the phone. Why is it so important to talk to people? What can you possibly be saying that can’t wait? I have no idea. But it’s just a phone, people, not the answer to World Peace. Shut up.
Another example like those given above is the time we saw two gum-clacking teenages bopping through Wal-Mart. Two friends, ostensibly out on a shopping expedition together. There they marched, happily through the store, each having her own cell-phone conversation with someone else. Why bother seeing your friends? Just stay at home and call them! No, wait: one must be SEEN talking on the cell phone. :rolleyes:
I don’t get it. Not one little bit.
L’il Pluck,
That is actually very unusual for me. I’m generally not a confrontational person at all. But something within me just snapped at that moment.
I carry my phone with me all the time. If I am in a meeting I turn it off. If someone comes to see me at my desk or I am helping someone at their desk, and it becomes apparent this will take a while. I turn it off. If I haven’t turned it off and it rings while I am talking to another person/other people I usually look to see who is calling. At least 90% of the time I just put it back in my pocket and let them leave a message.
None of these attitudes rub off on my co-workers because none of them do any of those things. No matter the circumstances, if the phone rings they answer it.
There are a lot of insecure and/or lonely people out there. When their phone rings, it may make them feel important, like somebody cares that they exist. It probably makes them feel even more important if they can be speaking with one person whilst having another one wait in queue. Poor souls.
Show them by example, though. I remember the first time this happened to me - I was in college, at a gf’s room, having a conversation. The phone rang. And rang. And she ignored it completely. Blew me away. It made me feel very important. From that moment on, I never answer the phone when I’m talking with someone else in person.
If you’re talking to the person waiting at the curb for you in a car, I don’t see this as being overkill at all.
I just want to get an idea from the rest of you, because this comes up with me from time to time, and a friend of mine was discussing this very same issue with me this morning.
Personally, I almost always answer my cell phone, even if it’s just to say I can’t talk at the moment. 9 times out of 10, it’s my wife calling me, and we don’t tend to have lengthy phone conversations anyway. I find it difficult to just not answer when I know she’s calling.
A lot of you have been talking about people being rude by engaging in conversation on the phone when you’re with someone else. I just want to know if you feel as strongly about taking 10 seconds to tell find out what the person needs and then get back to them later. Is that the same thing in your minds?
And just to be absolutely clear, I’m asking in the interest of fighting my own ignorance. I’ve never asked someone before if they thought I was being rude, so I really want to know. Thanks.
Well, Asimovian, this old luddite feels that the cell phone should almost never interfere. But I was around 3 decades before cell phones, and remember what life was like before them.
Asimovian, as I said before, I’m not going to be offended by the occasional 10 second check-in for important people - your wife, your boss, your assistant or your babysitter would all qualify. Probably also your mother’s cardiologist.
Note the “occasionally”. Thrice in an hour is really starting to push it with me. Four times, and I’d not be nasty, but probably say something like, “Since your life is so crazy at the moment that your phone keeps ringing with important people, than maybe we should find a different time to hang out. You’ve obviously got a lot on your plate right now.”
This is all null and void, of course, if you give me warning beforehand. If you call and invite me to lunch and say, “Look, my mom’s in the hospital and my kid’s got the sniffles and is with the babysitter and my assistant is going loopy this week, but I really need to get out of the office for an hour. Want to go to lunch?” Then I’ll probably say yes and be much more understanding when your phone sounds like a reception desk.