Apparently I need a sign politely asking people to discontinue their cellular calls while conducting business in my store.
They have the mistaken impression that I am a machine and that if they just shove money at me, I’ll magically know what they want and work away at it while they chat blissfully on about anything and everything but mostly nothing.
I’m a human, dammit! :mad:
The best I’ve come up with so far is;
Anybody thoughts and suggestions?
Aw, crap!
I left “cell” out of the title. :smack:
Any mods feel like helping me out on that one, I’ll send cookies! 
Ok, maybe not so much, but I would really appreciate it
harmless, I know exactly what you mean!
(Only I can’t help you with the title. Sorry. :))
Oh, heck, just barge right in to the conversation. Listen to it and say, “you want what? You need the Flapdooger file? I don’t think we carry that here?” “You want me to meet you at Chez Froufrou at 7:30? Sorry, I don’t get off til 8:00.” “I’m sorry, but I can’t pick your daughter up from ballet and your son from soccer.” “Do you want to buy something?”
I acknowledge that I’ve seen them, then ignore them. If they get mad, I say “I don’t want to interrupt - I’ll be with you as soon as you’re done,” then continue to ignore them. If they interrupt their cell phone conversation and tell me something that excuses them - “I’m sorry, I’m on the phone with the person I’m going to fax this to,” or “I have my office on the line so I can get instructions from them,” I’ll give them a pass. I also gave a pass to a college-age kid who kept saying “Ma, I gotta go. I’ll call you back. Mom, I’m at the store, I have to go. Mom, I have to go. Bye, Mom. I’ll call you back.” It’s not his fault his mother is annoying.
Argh. Yes. There’s a special corner of hell reserved for these folk, IMO. I spent the past summer working at Subway - y’know, the place where they make your sandwiches to order? So you need to acknowledge the server and tell them what you want?
I recommend a simple sign: “PLEASE HANG UP YOUR PHONE!”
My students do sort of the same thing to me. They just hold up their work and expect me to know what they want, etc. I just look at it and comment upon what a lovely piece of paper they have there. They get the message and stop treating me like some sort of answer machine.
But what about the evil sales clerk who ignored me because he was speaking on his cell phone the entire time I was in the store? Where’s my sign for that guy?
Well the diplomatic and tactful way might be something along the lines of:
In order to be able to provide you with our best service, we request that you please end all phone calls before approaching the register/counter/knife-bearing-woman.
At a local cafe the sign states
And they do. I’ve seen judges and major attorneys get huffy in a “Don’t you know who I am?” manner, but they don’t care.
And they haven’t lost business.
:eek:
Who told you?
MissTake, I like that one. I may put a few up.
Ashes, Ashes, I know what you mean! I was at a corner store picking up a few things and the guy talked on his phone the entire time while ringing me up.
I even had to bag my own stuff and as I was walking out would you believe he had the nerve to yell out “Ma’am! Could you close that door on your way out?”
I turned to him and said, “Considering I just had to bag my own groceries, why don’t you put ‘boo’ on hold and do it yourself.” :dubious:
A-hole.
That’s good advice, swampbear, if they’d just shut up long enough for me to interupt! 
The store manager has it.
I’ve been fortunate that no clerk has ever tried to ring me up while yapping. It wouldn’t have occured to me prior to this thread that they would. One would think that employers would have a “no personal cell phone usage on company time” policy (he says as he types this from a workplace with a “no personal internet usage” policy).
There is a book store around here that has a sign up telling you that you are not to use your cell phone while in the store. Also, they ask you to turn it to silent. I have seen workers there walk up to people that haven’t and ask them to either turn it off or leave. I LOVE that bookstore.
Our local post offices all have big signs saying that no cell phone usage is allowed at the counter; if you don’t hang up, they’ll send you to the back of the line to start again. It’s very effective, too.
I’m embarrassed to admit that one time at the bank I was that annoying customer talking on the phone. But in self defense, it was my husband who’d called me, and even I kept telling him I needed to go and would call him right back, he was demanding something or other IMMEDIATELY. I should have just hung up on him. As it turned out, the teller screwed up the transaction – totally not her fault – and so later when I had to explain to him why funds had been transferred oddly between accounts, I was able to point out that because HE KEPT ME ON THE DAMN PHONE, I hadn’t been able to tell the teller what to do. I think he got the message.
At my office, I simply ignore the fucksticks that are on their phone. When they hang up, then, and only then, will I aknowledge their presence.
Assholes. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :mad:
Waiting tables, I ignore people who won’t get off their phones as they’re sat. I used to just walk up and ask what they wanted to drink, etc. until the number of “Eat-shit-peon-I’m-on-the-phone-here-go-away” looks I got outnumbered the polite people. As far as I am concerned, they can get off their phone or sit there thirsty. At least they could say ‘hang on’ and order. But NO!
Pet peeve # 23.
Grrrrrrrrr. People who talk on cell phones in restaurants really grind my ass.
I can’t stand it when they talk really LOUD so that the entire restaurant can hear their mundane conversation.
Sometimes, I’d settle for mundane conversations. One time, I was sitting in a restaurant. At the next table were a man and a woman. The man was on the phone, describing the details of a medical procedure he had performed that day. Just what I want to listen do while I dine.
How about the people that politely turn off their phones at the movie theater, but still insist on looking at the bright little screen during the movie.
I was at the post office yesterday and a guy walks up to the counter yakking away on his phone. The lady behind the counter must have been in this situation many times before, she looks at the guy and says, “As soon as you’re done with your conversation, I will take care of you, NEXT!!!”. The guy kind of blathers something at the lady, then continues his phone conversation, the lady says, “NEXT!!!”. The guy kind of blathers something else at the lady and she says, “please move aside while I wait on the next customer”.
Nice, I loved it. 
Wow. I do this a lot - I just happen to be on the phone when I’m in the store sometimes. I don’t call people up and then walk in, but sometimes we haven’t finished our conversation yet when I arrive at the grocery store, or sometimes they call me when I’m in there, and I don’t want to miss the call for whatever reason. I don’t talk in restaurants, of course not in the movies, or anywhere else where it’s quiet, or close quarters. But a big grocery store? Who cares. When I get up to the register, I’ll ask the person to wait while I talk to the clerk, but I don’t necessarily end the conversation. I usually smile at the clerk and say, “Sorry that I’m on the phone,” in case the clerk cares, but I don’t feel compelled to give the reason. If I get a dirty look, I’ll make the person hold on. If the clerk doesn’t seem to care, I sometimes talk to the person in between talking to the clerk (if the person on the other phone doesn’t mind). I dunno, people are busy. We do a lot of things at once these days. And there’s no real magic to what we’re doing that requires extended conversation, is there? I want to buy this. You want to sell it to me. Here’s the money. Here’s a bag. Thanks. Everyone knows what’s gonna happen.
I don’t understand the “I don’t want to hear every word of your conversation” gripe exactly. Isn’t hearing other people’s conversations just sort of part of being in public? Assuming volume is the same (and some people talk really loud when they’re both right there, just like some people talk loud on the phone), why is it different from the situation of an overheard conversation when both people are right there?
I guess people will respond and say, “But it’s just RUDE.” I don’t know – I think it depends on how it’s done. It seems to be such a fashionable gripe, the gripe against cell phones. Has no one who replied so far ever talked on the phone in a store? It is my opinion that the mere fact of being on a cell phone in a public place ≠ rudeness.
If you are talking to someone, you should not also be holding a separate conversation. That is rude, whether you are dealing with two people in person, or one person face to face and one person on a phone, land or cell, or two people on the phone and you keep switching lines back and forth between them. It is disrespectful to be constantly dividing your attention.
It’s fine to talk on the phone in the store, as far as I care; I often do it myself, while I’m walking around. But I FINISH THE DAMN CONVERSATION before I choose to walk up to the register and enter into another conversation (the other conversation being “Hi, how are you today? Yes, that will be all. Here’s my money. Thanks, have a nice day!” on my part).
I realize the act of checking out is a pretty routine one, but you still have to participate in it, and it’s rude to be yapping to someone else while you do it. It’s equally rude to be standing there talking to your in-person companion and ignoring the cashier - it’s just worse with a cell phone because people often get really into their phone conversations and go glassy-eyed and ignore the world around them, while in-person conversations are usually easier to break into because they are looking around actively to see the other person’s face instead of gazing blankly off into the distance.
Also, if you come up to ME at MY work with your phone yapping, I will ignore you because I don’t just work as a cashier - I need to talk to you and take an order and work out the details, and I cannot do that if you are talking to somebody else. Obviously the person you’re on the phone with is more important to you than me - you probably know them personally, while I’m just a person at the copy store - so I will wait until you are done. Same as if you were at a restaurant. If you’re out with a group of friends, don’t you all SHUT UP while they’re taking your order? Or do you just carry on? “So I was talking to Brad the other day and oh I’d like a salad anyway he was all like so what are you doing saturday that’ll be creamy italian dressing and i was like oh nothing what are you doing and a coke.”