h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The telephone seems to be an instrument of torture nowadays. Most cell phone conversations can be summed up by: "I'm here. I'm on my way there. I'll talk to you when I get there." Boring stuff. If you're going to conduct your business in front of an audience, you're obligated to be witty and entertaining. Shape up, people.

It is also extremely impolite to injure someone while you're talking on the phone. Yes, I'm talking to you folks who attempt to drive while yacking on the phone. You know who you are: you're the person who just pulled out into heavy traffic, forcing several people to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting you, and who is now weaving his blithe way down the street, ignoring speed limits, lane markings, and that poor soul attempting to cross the street up there at the red traffic light you're about to run through. Knock it off before you kill somebody.

Nor are we safe at home. Don't know about other countries, but here in the USA, telemarketers are a plague. They generally call at the most inopportune times (you're trying to cook dinner after a long day at the office and the kids are fighting, the dog has just tracked mud through the house, the spouse has a bone to pick with you, and the washing machine has started making a weird noise) and they want to talk to you about switching your long-distance service ...

I try very hard to be sympathetic to the poor person on the other end of the line, who is some poor shlub just trying to do his or her job, but it's difficult not to:
-> hang up on him
-> say that you're not interested and then hang up
-> scream at him and then hang up
-> put the phone down while he goes through his spiel and then hang up
-> hand the phone to the screaming child or bone-picking spouse, who will then hang up
-> rip the phone out of the wall and hang up


Being polite is a real challenge sometimes.

It's even hard when your're getting paid for it... I'm a cashier and I am always having to deal with the rude people who are gabbing away at their cell phones, talking about nonsense that is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand (the fact that I need them to hand over their cash so I can ring up the next person), and completely ignoring me...

As for telemarketers, I used to be one, and I feel kinad sorry for them. Here's what I consider to be the "polite" way to deal with them:
1) When they start to give their spiel, simply say, "I'm not interested, but thank you"
2) Give them time to reply with "ok, thank you, goodbye" or some such reply.
3) If they continue to push, hang up. Don't yell or scream, just hang up.

I know that a lot of the people at my telemarketing job would hang up when told the "customer" wasn't interested. I did. There were a few people who would push it to the bitter end, but the majority of us would hang up. Telemarketers are just trying to pay bills, and I know most of us hated it. Be nice to them. We were crowded into a room with lots of background noise (including managers yelling at us) and expected to be able to get x number of sales a day, with about 90% of the people we called getting angry at us.

Mobile phones have given rude and discouteous people a whole new avenue of expression in the modern world. As has already been stated here the inappropriate places are on crowded public transport, in restaurants, cinemas, funerals, etc.

But the one thing that really winds me up is the fact that firstly some people seem to have been deafened by their own phones as they must have the ringtone as loud as possible rather than use the vibrate feature available on most mobiles.

Then there are the people who have to relieve their boredom by endlessly cycling through the ringtones on their phone over and over again.

Then there are the people who have their phone on a high volume and then fail to answer the damn thing when it rings! Why bother in the first place?

In one location where I worked, the building was made from steel and brick. It was a very popular department store, and many people got inside and had to call everybody they knew to come and see. Unfortunately, reception inside a steel and brick building is not very good to begin with. This was made even less good when an electro-genius on staff wired up a system to the steel support girders which put out an extremely annoying hum right in the frequency most often used. Most customers walking into the store while talking on the phone would make it through the foyer and four steps into the store, and discover that their phones were useless. No need to argue or confront anybody.

All buildings should be made like that shining example.

Good, in'it?

I think we'll see more of those phone-blocking fields in use in the near future - especially in theatres and cinemas.

Personally I try to be polite about using my phone - it doesn't ring very often, but when it does I will generally excuse myself from whatever group I happen to be part of and move a ways off (or into another room if indoors) to have the conversation without disturbing them. After all, in most cases they're not going to be interested if I'm talking to someone who's just randomly rung me to plead for help fixing their computer. I also don't generally randomly ring people to shout at them... I'll get into a quiet spot without loads of people around first, because not only do I not want to irritate them, I also don't want them to hear what I'm saying.

I also try to avoid other things, like sending endless streams of text messages at the dinner table (as a relative of mine has been known to do), and the 'Hi, it's me, I'm on the train' routine, although sometimes that's necessary when telephoning to inform someone of your ETA, in which case I try to keep it brief, but avoiding the grunting method.

Oh, and my last thing I'm going to mention right now is ringtones - ringtones drive me up the wall! Some of them are so amazingly irritating... some of you may know the Orange-sponsered 'please turn off your mobile phones' bit in Warner Village cinemas in the UK - did they deliberately pick one of the most irritating of the default Nokia ringtones for that? Mine, I think, isn't very irritating at all, and I usually answer it quickly enough that most people don't even notice it.

Worst thing though? Phone with irritating ringtone lying unanswered on someone's desk.

It's really rude to leave your mobile phone on your desk and then go off to lunch. We don't want to hear it ringing while someone tries to get hold of you. If you *really* don't want to take it with you, then please, please turn it off, or onto silent. NOTE - not vibrate, as that's very scary on a desk.

On the subject of phones, unless you have a private office, we don't want to hear your voice mail. Nor the sound of your phone ringing out. Harumph.

"All buildings should be made like that shining example."

Oh yes, please!


About ringtone; I programmed my own, so it's a song by my favorite band, and it's pretty obscure, so most people (except JoyE fans, which are rare) don't know it. Mine doesn't ring that often, but no one has commented on it being annoying. I only really use mine when I'm out and about and need to tell my mom my plans or I want to go directly from work to meet my boyfriend somewhere, and 99% of the time I call from my car.

And if you call a call centre or any wrong number have the courtesy to at least apologise and not hang up as we roll off the company name please.

The signal blocking isn't as great as it sounds...it also blocks the frequencies used by firefighters radios which means if the buildings burning down it will be a real problem if anyone needs to be rescued

Oh yeah and stop calling my phone extension to ask about DIY supplies - the number might be similar to B&Q but they don't answer their phone so quickly