Just a Minute, Boss. My Cellphone Is Ringing

[Kris Kumar]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/fashion/thursdaystyles/07cell.html?ex=1278388800&en=77ef6bd2b5374381&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/fashion/thursdaystyles/07cell.html?ex=1278388800&en=77ef6bd2b5374381&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Fernando Zulueta has an opinion on the use of cellphones at work: he loves it. Mr. Zulueta, 46, who owns a chain of charter schools in South Florida, scratches out the land-line number on his business cards so people won't use it to call him. If he is in a business meeting and his cellphone rings, he often picks it up, even though he considers such behavior annoying. ... In the absence of clear guidelines, the opportunities for abuse continue to expand. Dr. Neil Gailmard, an optometrist in Munster, Ind., who helps other optometrists manage their business affairs, said that two or three patients a day receive calls on their cellphones while he is treating them, despite a sign in his office asking patients to turn their phones off. ... Even while cell etiquette in the workplace is divided into the Rousseau and Hobbes schools, devices like camera phones and BlackBerries - which let people read and send e-mail while they're supposed to be paying attention to a conference call - are raising new questions about what is and isn't appropriate behavior at work."</i><br /><br />Okay, I admit, I have on more than two occasions excused myself from conversations with my boss because my Smartphone rang and they were important calls. And I have many a times checked e-mails during boring meetings. :oops: But if I am not expecting any important calls, I never bother to check the screen if the phone rings during a meeting. And I always put the phone in <i>silent</i> profile whenever I am at work. The thing that annoys me is that, I have colleagues at work who haven't yet figured out the silent profile on their cell phones. :evil: This statement in the NY Times article [subscription required] sums it all up - <i>"Unlike many new technologies which are beloved by users but resented by everybody else, cellphones are considered a nuisance even by the people who embrace them."</i> What are your thoughts? Are you guilty? Or are you someone who is suffering from others' bad etiquettes?

[bleeman]

I'm generally a sufferer and really hate it when I've forgotten to set my phone to silent/meeting mode. I leave mine in meeting mode 99.99% of the time as I'll put on my Jabra BT250 in the morning when I leave and remove it when I get home at night. So if it rings, it only rings in my ear and no one else has to hear it. If it's not disruptive I'll flip open my MPx220 and hit the REJECT button to send the caller to voice mail. Otherwise, I'll just let it ring until it goes automatically if I don't want to disrupt the event I'm currently involved in.

My boss on the other hand is one who always thinks every phone call is important. He also has call waiting on his phone so he can jump to his next call. I finally learned that whenever he switches over to another call, I just hang up. If he calls back I'll go, oh sorry bad reception area :twisted:

My cell phone is for my convenience and not so I can be bothered 24x7. I try to look at it as an emergency device. I use it for my E-mail, contacts and calendar, but my general rule is you'll get voice mail and I'll return the call at my convenience.

[grogma]

Its the Crackberry effect or Connectivity Induced Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. In a world where everything is instant the first thing to go is your attention span. Having said that there's a lot to be said for anything that does away with the corporate meeting culture. Anyone standing up in front of a room and reading from a power point slide deserves to be ignored. Short of jamming the signals or developing a wireless emitter that forces all the phones in a room to go into silent mode there's not much you can do about it technologically. At least the Smartphone has the "Automatic" profile.

[Mike Temporale]

I always have my phone on, and with me. Sometimes it's on silent profile, and sometimes it's set to normal. For me, however, my phone is my main connection to my clients. If I was a fulltime employee, I would make sure it's always set to silent, or flight mode even. ;)