Went to Dominos today to pick-up a pizza, and literally couldn’t get service for at least 3 minutes because EVERYONE working there was texting on their phones openly in public. I hit the little bell they had to alert the staff and even said “HELLO? I’M PICKING UP AN ORDER” and nobody responded, instead I could see at least 3 people just standing out in the open looking at their phones. Finally somebody put down their phone and walked the 10 feet over to take my order.
Similarly at my own office job it’s pretty bad, 1 out of every 4 people at any time is actively looking at their phone and it switches up constantly so within eyeshot of myself is always somebody glancing down at their phone not paying attention to work. Work has made a bunch of meaningless rules that nobody follows about how you’re suppose to leave your phone in your car and emergency calls are supposed to be routed to our front desk to be relayed back to us but nobody follows them. People caught using their phones by their bosses made up an excuse about how they were using them for “outside research” and the bosses allow it since it’s easier than having to start a formal complaint on an employee.
So how has your work or other work places you know about dealt with the current phone addiction?
Where I work if you’re caught texting while you should be taking care of a customer you can be fired. It’s been enforced.
It’s complicated because you can use your phone as, say, a calculator, to find out the time when someone asks you, or otherwise assist a customer. But that’s different in that you are 1) fulfilling a request and 2) interacting with the customer.
Found head down texting when you should be helping a customer? You’re in deep shit.
But not all businesses enforce the rules the way they should.
Agreed but in the case of my employer, they can’t effectively do this because it’s too difficult to attract and maintain adequate staffing. National unemployment levels are very low and here in the central plains region, it’s even lower. Yeah, the bosses could fire the texting offenders but if they can’t replace them, how does that help?
Well, then, doing nothing IS how they’re dealing with this issue. They don’t want to (or can’t) pay enough to attract and retain staff who will follow the rules, so they had to relax working conditions (by implicitly allowing unfettered use of personal phones) to attract and retain workers. The labor market works in all kinds of ways.
Most of the guys I work with use their phones for music, always plugged in to one ear (thank goodness for the silence!) I know my boss, and probably many others, have their company email sent to their phones so when they’re away from their desks, they still are in touch. Honestly, the times people use them for personal things is very small.
I’ve not noticed retail or food workers around here spending any time on their phones - at least not in public view. Of course, for all I know, when they’re out of sight, they’re goofing off…
However many years ago, someone would be growing angry at the register while all them kids just chatted and flirted in the back. Or smoked in the break room. Same deal – as an owner, you deal with it by reprimanding the people not doing their jobs. Why they’re not doing their jobs isn’t really relevant.
When I train the new cashiers, I explicitly state “You are here to work. You are not here to text or chat on the phone or use your device in any way. You are not to bring your device to the registers. You are here to work.”
Yesterday I was at physical therapy and I finished one of my exercises and found myself standing there waiting for the therapist to stop looking at her phone and get to me. She wasn’t looking at work stuff - she had a computer for that. And she was away from her computer because her phone was across the room charging. This wasn’t a “millennial” either - this was a woman in her late 50s.
Anyway, my brother started work at a warehouse (not “Da Jungle”). The warehouse pickers have a lot of strict rules and one of them is absolutely no phones on the floor. But they are busy enough all day to not even notice their lack of phones. My brother’s position is a little above the pickers, and he says they don’t have phone rules where he’s at but he’s so busy he doesn’t have time to be idle on the phone anyway.
I suspect if there’s an emergency and your family needs to get ahold of you, they would just call the warehouse just like one would have done for the past 100 years.
Waaaah! Those kids and their damn phones. As mentioned above, inattentive employees have been a problem forever. In the 1970s, they would have been on the landline with their boyfriend or girlfriend, and you’d get a busy signal when trying to call in your order.
I admit I’m on my phone a lot at work, but I’d much rather have someone texting than have to overhear someone’s personal conversations. I still want to strangle my former coworker when I had to hear him every single day for 3
Months planning his Disney trip. And, he’s a stereotypical Chicagoan, everyone in the office could hear him.
I remember when I had to do some on-site work for a client in an office/cubicle setting (normally I work from home), I was absolutely shocked to hear this one guy on the phone yelling at his family every time I came in. Like, he had no situational awareness whatsoever. And it happened every time I came in, not just a one-off.
So yeah I agree - in my limited experience texting all day is super way better than talking on the phone. Yeesh!
I guess I’m the opposite type of boss. I look at my phone throughout the day and I expect my employees would like to do the same. So, as long as everyone gets their work done, text away!
I remember going through the checkout line once and the checker, a yound woman probably not long out of her teens, had her phone in one hand was messaging someone on FB messenger while the other hand was scanning my groceries. I have no use for idle chitchat (god, I hate getting a haircut!) so her silence was fine. If I had been her boss however I would’ve been pissed because other people do care. But it’s really nothing new, it’s just this:
This can be expected to greatly vary by workplace, wouldn’t you think?
Office-drone environment: 8 hours a day of texting would be a problem, but perhaps even as much as 2 hours a day texting can be tolerated “if the work gets done” and the texters aren’t obnoxious about it.
Retail environment involving cashiers: Who would tolerated a cashier even taking 30 seconds to compose a non-emergency text while you’re items are waiting to be scanned? Yeah, 30 seconds won’t usually break a customer’s day … but very few customers will be sanguine about the delay.
I was at Target a while ago. I gave the cashier a printed out coupon or gift card (I don’t remember which) that wouldn’t scan and she had to manually type in the numbers. Neither she nor I could read the numbers so she whipped out her phone and took a picture and then enlarged the picture to read the numbers.
My work is a bit different. I work in a national executive office and I have a lot of meetings where the VP’s, National Directors and I are in the board room on conference calls with the regional directors. During the calls my boss will frequently text someone sitting around the same conference table to ask a question/clarification about what is being discussed without interrupting the call. I’m a reporting developer/analyst so she will frequently text me to pull some numbers so she can respond to a specific issue later in the call.
Outside of meetings, nobody cares if texts are being sent/received as long as work is getting done… but then again our “customers” are all internal and not the general public.
I’d almost prefer store clerks texting over a cashier having a conversation with the next cashier over while both are serving customers so that you can’t tell when they’re talking to you and when they’re talking to each other. :rolleyes:
I had my mid-year performance review with my boss this week, over the phone since we work in different cities. At one point, after I had explained one of my accomplishments to her, there was dead silence. I started to go on to the next item, but then stopped and said, “Hello, are you there?” It took about 15 seconds for her to respond and let me know that she was still listening. I don’t know if she was looking at her work computer, or texting, or playing on her phone, but she was definitely doing something other than paying attention to me.
At the clinic I frequent everyone in reception has a phone in one hand. I’ve taken to slapping my hand on the counter to get attention. It works. They don’t hear your voice.
OTOH, the PA and I were discussing a prescription drug and she whipped out her phone and looked it up.
The Doctor always has a tablet with him. I assume my chart history is on display.