Cell
Phones
Cate
Bramble
Cctober,
2007
I can't believe it. My dad calls me and puts me on hold!!!
OK, Where was I? Not in this room, obviously! And how did that make you feel?
How many times a day do you witness the same kind of behavior?
I think we all agree technology is wonderful, but we cannot allow it to usurp our humanity. My behavior was uncivil -- RUDE. No one should tolerate electronic rudeness, except in extreme circumstances -- like your pants are on fire.
Many people these days say rudeness should be met with rudeness because it's the only thing that gets the necessary focus. Actually embarrassment works, too.
Dale Carnegie said there are four ways in which we have contact with the world, and by which we are evaluated and classified: What we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
Look around you in a restaurant. People are jabbering on the phone while dining with someone -- even family! People talk on their phones in stores and ignore people trying to communicate with them -- just like how I walked up here.
If my body's here but I'm focused on the other end of the phone, I am in effect saying "you who are surrounding me are not important."
Contempt is not a great impression to make.
A publicist in New York recently attended a luncheon and observed the participants during a panel discussion. "Nobody was looking at the speakers," he said. "People were typing away on their CrackBerrys or fiddling with their Palm Pilots. They were sending emails about work at the same time that they were trying to get more information from the people who were speaking." No message is going to sink in if nobody's really listening.
Most people have been absorbed into the Borg collective -- the evil Star Trek empire that assimilated life forms into one big network. But in my experience, people are not this self-absorbed in other countries. Elsewhere a cell phone is a tool, like a hammer -- not a supply of oxygen.
We can stop the Borg assimilation! But we may have to take drastic measures!
Robert Half Technology polled executives, and they all said it is inappropriate to leave a cellphone ringer on during a business meeting. It's very rude to force a speaker to stop their train of thought while you hunt for your ringing phone, then force attendees to interrupt their thoughts as they watch you handle your phone and the conversation that ensues. Plus you are gone from the meeting~! Sadly, some people are so focused on themselves they don't notice how disruptive they are.
Hullo, those are known as "egregious breaches of decorum", according to Peter Handal, chairman of Dale Carnegie Training.
Peter Handal says to start civilly: announce loudly at the beginning of the meeting or event, "I need everyone's undivided attention. We need everything turned off. We need your complete focus." That should be enough for rational adults.
However, we all know with some audiences it's like herding cats, so you see these announcements everywhere: drive-up windows, doctor's offices, movie theaters -- there's even one on our program.
Keep in mind that if you somehow miss the warning, you should be prepared for what comes next. A lot of people have realized the only thing that cures the rudeness is large scale, focused rudeness. If you don't believe me, let your phone ring in a movie theater. Don't say I didn't warn you. But I bet you'll think twice about doing it again.
Same thing goes for talking on the phone while dining with people -- not everyone takes kindly to being insulted. If your pants aren't on fire after you insult your dinner partners.
Phones have many wonderful features. One not commonly used is the Vibrate setting. This setting is designed to help you present a normal human image while you remain attached to the Borg network. Vibrate is also much better than using a ringtone that sends a scary message -- such as using the line from the movie "The Wedding Crashers", when the woman says, "I love you, don't ever leave me, because I'll find you."
Do you find yourself talking loudly in the phone, as if that helps the persons on the other end to hear you better? Love you -- you are better than the TV. You really want us to hear and respond or you wouldn't do it.
I followed a woman around target one night because she was spilling some juicy stuff! Well actually several of us were disappointed when it ended. A couple people were still taking notes. They looked like novelists or screenwriters. Good writing material at Target. You can't just make that stuff up.
Same goes for conversations on buses and trains. No wonder a rudeness quiz published in The Reader's Digest said that the polite thing to do if your cell phone rings on a bus or a train is to quietly say something like, "I can't talk right now, I'm on the bus and three screenwriters watching me. I'll call you later."
Here's the bottom line: it's your image. You can be a civil human, a Borg, or one cat in the herd.
Love technology and use it to communicate, but don't show contempt. Stay focused on the people around you, whether it's your family, your co-workers, or your customers. Even in their wired world, you need to have the personal touch.
copyright 2007 Cat Bramble