The Cell Phone; A great example on how morons destroy...

[John Picard]

Get better jobs.

I'm tired of these cell-phone zombies out in public in front of me in a checkout line not paying attention. They're rude to other customers and the cashier. I make sure that when walking about in a store and some cell-phone zombie isn't paying attention to possible colliding with me, I don't move. Fuck 'em.

 

[Plecostomus]

Normally I work factories, for those of you who are "office types" and have never set foot on a production floor here's how it is: In my trade you are assigned to a machine or a group of machines. You are given material, drawings and access to the tool-crib to set up the machines, then you run a few pieces and you summon a lower-paid operator to run the machine for you while you move on to the next machine.

It has gotten to the point where many factories are banning cellphones on the property because (and I have seen this) people are sitting there chatting on the phone and not running the machine or even worse running the machine and not inspecting product. We're not paying you to sit there and talk on the phone.

Sorry kids, but I was born in 1971 I lived a good portion of my life without being in constant contact with everyone... I actually had to live my life without constant feedback and advice and instant driving service.

Again I apologize but you don't need to be talking on the phone during work hours about the party last night. We are asking you for eight hours of time, eight hours in which we pay you to make product for us. We are NOT asking you to sit there and discuss Grand Theft Rock-Band IX for the Wee PlayBoxStation 12 or discuss weather or not there is going to be any "you know" at the party tonight and if so what kind because you might have to take a drug test this week.

I keep my cellphone with me at work, but SWMBO and I agree: Unless one of us is on the way to prison or the hospital there is no reason to be in constant contact, we have the rest of the day after our respective shifts to spend time with each other.


Then there is the camera-phone angle. I worked for the company that makes those rugged polycarb water bottles that everyone likes. That company has two plants here in New York, one in Penfield one in Fairport. Fairport Plant makes the sports bottles.

Company hires anyone that can pass a simple drug screen and math test, the job consists of mainly picking bottles off a cooling belt and putting them into containers, very exciting stuff! There are other tasks once a batch of bottles is complete (such as capping, printing, cleaning) but this is the main entry-level job.

The "new" design for the sports bottle consisted of a sexy-looking curved bottle and a rubber-over-hard plastic cap that ran on a special custom designed Engle injection-molding machine with a very secret rotary mold flipper and two-stage injection process.

Through a stroke of luck we managed to hire over a dozen Asian folks from a Temp Service to help us get the new product moving. I say this was a stroke of luck because I had worked with a couple of them previously at another company and I figured they would be a great fit here.

One of the younger fellows spent all shift talking on his phone in his native language. I asked him to stop when I realized he was looking inside the Engle machine and making sketches. At one point I caught him reading numbers off the screen over the phone. I asked him to stop, and he refused.

I got management involved and they "looked into it" but he continued. Last straw was when I caught him snapping photos of the mold after I had shut down the press to change a gear. I fired him on the spot.

Next day I came in and he was back on the press chatting away and I was met at my locker by Management. Got written up for "harassing" the kid with the phone, turns out he filed a complaint against me prior to me firing him.

Long complex story short about six months after I left Nalge-Nunc the first cheap imported knockoffs of our "new" sports bottle product hit the shelves. A genuine Nalgene is $20, an imported ripoff is $5. There is no point in buying a Genuine Nalgene anymore, as you can walk into the Dollar Crap store and get basically the same product for far far less.

Hurt the bottom line? You bet! Nalge-Nunc was sold off twice after that, now they are a division of ThermoFisher... and ThermoFisher is extreamly strict about any sort of electronic devices in the production areas.

 

[TGTheodore]

Jamming devices are becoming more prevalent in European theaters. Unfortunately, in the U.S., there's some bizarre little 1930's Communication Law banning interfering with certain types of communication. So we can't use the jammers here. (Apparently, emergency personnel in Europe have pagers on different frequencies, so they can still be reached -- in TRUE EMERGENCIES.)

But I'm hoping that little law, made 40+ years before cell phones, will be repealed and jammers will become more commonplace -- especially in theaters, restaurants and all similar kinds of places.

I control who contacts me when. I consider the proper guidelines for using cell phones to be generally the same as the proper guidelines for farting.

--Ted

 

[Plecostomus]

I consider the proper guidelines for using cell phones to be generally the same as the proper guidelines for farting.

--Ted

Sadly many people seem to think the guidelines are "LOUDLY AND IN PUBLIC" for both.

 

[RandyS]

I love my cell phone, and it's the only phone I have (I don't have a land line)

That said, it can still take a message if I'm out

Yep, my cell is my only phone too, and I agree, if I'm out and somebody calls, it goes straight to voicemail. Not that I get many voicemails, most of my friends can't be bothered with it, but since I have call ID, this isn't a problem.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Well at least some people agree with me. I thought I was going insane-er

 

[Maestro]

I consider the proper guidelines for using cell phones to be generally the same as the proper guidelines for farting.

I am going to remember this and then next year when I go through the student handbook with my (will then be) sophomores, I'll trot this out. Great analogy. Don't care if they giggle. They'll get it.

 

[John Picard]

Sorry kids, but I was born in 1971 I lived a good portion of my life without being in constant contact with everyone... I actually had to live my life without constant feedback and advice and instant driving service.

Again I apologize but you don't need to be talking on the phone during work hours about the party last night. We are asking you for eight hours of time, eight hours in which we pay you to make product for us. We are NOT asking you to sit there and discuss Grand Theft Rock-Band IX for the Wee PlayBoxStation 12 or discuss weather or not there is going to be any "you know" at the party tonight and if so what kind because you might have to take a drug test this week.

1969 here, and we didn't get a push button telephone until 1983. Yep, it was rotary dial for most of my life, and I agree with you on how I don't understand why on earth people feel the need to constantly be talking. My cell phone is my primary line (I ditched the land line), and if someone calls while I'm indisposed, I press the button to bypass the call. I don't understand how people can be talking to another person face-to-face and then decide that the cell phone call takes priority. Hell, when I was a kid, if you attempted to answer the telephone while eating dinner, mom or dad smacked you. No one left the dinner table for any reason, and mine wasn't the only household like that.

Back when I had my landline, my son got antsy one day when I ignored the telephone as we were busy doing something. He fretted about who it could have been, and I told him, "If it's important, they'll call back".

We have an annoying lady where I work who has a ringer at an annoyingly loud volume PLUS it's an annoying ring. She'll start yapping on it and she's so loud that almost everyone within a 30' radius can clearly hear her conversation.

 

[Triskelion]

Wow, some horror stories here.

Maestro, I feel your pain. Enough said.

Plecostomnus, I don't advocate racism. But I do wish I had a nickel for every one of my Chinese English students who wished they could go to a western country (ie, the USA) for "Training" and "Learning about technology". But when you see how the Chinese are "educated", you begin to realize why copying innovation is so important to them.

Now, in my personal experience a manager's key function is hiring the right people in the first place.

Anyway, sorry about your bizarro headache. I can relate.

 

[Michael Chris]

I love cell phones! One of the most splendid devices ever devised by human hands! Jammers are hugely disgusting, by the way. What if you need a cell phone for a medical purpose?

 

[Trekker4747]

I love cell phones! One of the most splendid devices ever devised by human hands! Jammers are hugely disgusting, by the way. What if you need a cell phone for a medical purpose?

I don't think they've built pacemakers into cell-phones yet so I doubt the "medical purpose" is all that purposeful.

 

[judge alba]

must admit i have a cell phone and i'm always using it but i do follow certain courtesy as in if im talking to someone and the phone rings i dont answer until i've finished talking to the person in front of me. the amount of times i've had that done to me i'll be talking to a friend in the street when his or her phone rings they'll answer it ans have a conversation with the caller almost forgeting about me unil they say
"hey where are you off to?"

 

[judge alba]

sorry duoble post

 

[Cali]

Yes, and how many hundreds of people have you seen phoning someone on the train to say "I'm on the train"?

I wish I had some sort of interference device, to block the signal every time someone says that.

And what about those of us who have to call someone at the other end to let them know what time the train is getting in if we're being picked up? There's no way I'm waiting until I get off at my stop to call, as that would mean hanging around a dark, deserted train station late at night in some cases. No thanks, that's not really safe at my stop.

And stop texting when you're walking in a crowd! I run square into these jackholes and pretend I didn't notice.

I text when I'm walking along the street, but I always keep checking ahead of me to make sure I'm not going to walk into someone. And in the seven or eight years I've had a phone, I've never walked into someone while I've been using it.

When I saw Wicked prior to Thanksgiving, I was appalled at the 50+ set who had their phones on and texting during intermission. I would still be annoyed if the kids were doing it (and oddly enough the students I had with me weren't too bad), but middle aged folks who should know better?

Genuine query here - what's wrong with texting/calling during the interval of a show? It's not disturbing anyone's enjoyment of the show so long as the phone is turned off again for the second act.

But I'm hoping that little law, made 40+ years before cell phones, will be repealed and jammers will become more commonplace -- especially in theaters, restaurants and all similar kinds of places.

No thanks. I like to know that I can be contacted or can contact others if I need to. It doesn't mean I'm going to sit in a restaurant and take calls/texts constantly through a meal.

 

[Michael Chris]

I love cell phones! One of the most splendid devices ever devised by human hands! Jammers are hugely disgusting, by the way. What if you need a cell phone for a medical purpose?

I don't think they've built pacemakers into cell-phones yet so I doubt the "medical purpose" is all that purposeful.

Oh, very much so! They can help someone get into contact with others in case of a problem.

 

[TGTheodore]

But I'm hoping that little law, made 40+ years before cell phones, will be repealed and jammers will become more commonplace -- especially in theaters, restaurants and all similar kinds of places.

No thanks. I like to know that I can be contacted or can contact others if I need to. It doesn't mean I'm going to sit in a restaurant and take calls/texts constantly through a meal.

The jammers work in an immediate fixed area such as the theater house (audience area) and dining area. You can still go out to a lobby or foyer and text or chat your heart out. Also -- this just in -- nearby pay phones are still alive.

--Ted

 

[Trekker4747]

I love cell phones! One of the most splendid devices ever devised by human hands! Jammers are hugely disgusting, by the way. What if you need a cell phone for a medical purpose?

I don't think they've built pacemakers into cell-phones yet so I doubt the "medical purpose" is all that purposeful.

Oh, very much so! They can help someone get into contact with others in case of a problem.

Somehow we got a long just fine before the cell-phone.

Look, I don't deny that they're useful and important in many situations but let's be perfectly honest here, most of the people out there talking on/texting on their phone are not doing it because they're a world-class diagnostician and only THEY have the answers to save a life of the week.

Most people all calling/texting/answering the phone over bullshit nonsense. I see people in my store at 6:30 in the friggin' morning chatting on the phone. What the hell? What is so damn important you're talking about it in the grocery store at dawn? Is talking about little Billy's funny rash that big a deal? (I've actually heard this conversation occuring at the early morning hours over a cellphone.)

People need to learn a lot more courtesy with them and that'd make them a whole lot better right there to start. In a theater? Take it to the lobby, and have the phone on silent alert (also check it in the lobby so the bright screen doesn't disturb other people) in a restaurant or store where someone is waiting on you? Keep off the damn phone.

Courtesy is all I think we're asking for here.

 

[Michael Chris]

Courtesy is good, I agree with that.

 

[Ruaidhri]

I'm another person with no land line, so my cell is my only phone. When I'm in public, it's usually on vibrate, though my ringer is music (an MP3 of Weird Al's "White and Nerdy). If it rings when I'm with people, I usually check to see who it is, but don't answer it. I have voicemail and ID, so if it's important I'll call them back.

And I absolutely HATE using it when I'm walking around in public. I don't WANT to have conversations while in the grocery store. I don't use it to play games; if I want to play a video game, I'll do it on a screen larger than 2 inches high.

My best friend is one of those who fit into the category of the "bored caller" and will just call and text for no reason at all. It's a little annoying. Plus she also is one who is constantly checking it, though that's usually because it's constantly ringing and alerting her to text messages. I absolutely hate it when she's more occupied with a text message conversation that with her friend sitting right in front of her. I know I'm a little dull, but I'm not THAT boring. Her cel phone use is the one thing about her I really dislike; I think I'm probably going to throw her Blackberry off my balcony at some point.

 

[JonathonWally]

I don't think they've built pacemakers into cell-phones yet so I doubt the "medical purpose" is all that purposeful.

Oh, very much so! They can help someone get into contact with others in case of a problem.

Somehow we got a long just fine before the cell-phone.

The ER doctor can send pertinent patient information to my blackberry if need be, and can also communicate different orders depending on the patients medical history over a cell phone as opposed to the open air radio which can be monitored. It ensures the patient's privacy.