I have meetings where some of my colleagues will read emails and text during the meeting. Sometimes they accept phone calls and walk out of the meeting for long periods of time. Nobody says anything about it, but I feel it is rude. For some bizarre reason I find myself feeling embarrassed by their bad behavior. Perhaps I am embarrassed because I never speak up about their behavior and I feel some responsibility to do so. Even so, I don’t speak up because I don’t want to put our tenuous working relationships at risk.
In my own defense, I am not chairing this meeting and I am not their boss. I am also not their mother, relative, or friend; but if not me, who should do it? Whose responsibility is it to call them out?
Yet another excuse is the attitude of general permissiveness within our society that makes me reluctant to speak out. There is this “do your own thing” attitude that was instigated by the 1960’s hippies who were into drugs and free love. Anything was okay so long as there was no victim. Anything was okay between consenting adults. No blood, no foul. Not that I can do anything about the laissez-faire attitude of society, but it just doesn’t suit me. I want to call out “Bad dog!” when I see rude cell phone use, reckless drivers, litterers, teens misbehaving at the mall, and other crimes and misdemeanors.
But getting back to the phone usage, I know it’s not a crime. It probably doesn’t even infringe on anybody’s rights. It does violate cell phone etiquette, which is either poorly understood, or widely ignored. I found the following rules of cell phone etiquette in a Computerworld article online.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9147558/Here_comes_the_new_cell_phone_etiquette
1. Lower your voice when taking calls in public.
2. Avoid personal topics when others can hear you.
3. Avoid taking calls when you're already engaged in a face-to-face conversation.
4. If you do take a call, ask permission of the people with you.
5. Avoid texting during face-to-face conversations.
6. Put your phone's ringer on "silent" in theaters and restaurants.
7. Don't light up your phone's screen in a dark theater.
8. Hang up and drive.
