what's your cell phone beef?

[pippin]

"Loutish cell use is out of control. Mobile phones now ring at weddings and funerals, job interviews and surgical procedures. No event, not even a teary movie, is immune. . . Boorish cell use isn't limited to social venues. It's corrupting the most basic of business courtesies."

http://www.bcentral.com/articles/krotz/165.asp

what's your pet peeve regarding cell phone users?

[slackmaster]

1. People who are incapable of talking and driving at the same time

But attempting to do both in heavy, merging freeway traffic.

[XNASA]

2. The beautiful cell phone users of the opposite sex...........

....never get around to calling me on mine. That's my peeve.

[eyesroll]

3. People talking on their phones in toilet stalls

While they're quite obviously using the toilet.

I see/hear that far too often at conventions.

Ick.

Can I also add that "Hit Me Baby, One More Time" isn't an appropriate ringtone for someone's business line?

[onehandle]

4. Movie Theaters...

I was at a movie a few months ago, and a lady answered the phone. She was chatting away and the sheep in the theater jsut sat. I got up and said, "Do you mind?" She said rather loudly, "I'm On The Phone!".

I had her thrown out. People think the theater is their living room. I hate VCRs.

[Kellanved]

10. Either that or during lectures/exams

The latter causing an instant fail :evilgrin:.

Phoning while driving is forbidden in Europe.

[Heddi]

14. Oooh yes---all of my professors at school

have a NO CELLPHONE RINGING policy in class.

You can have the phone on vibrate, but you're not allowed to have even the little "alert" beep...

If it goes off in class, you get 5 pts off for each time it rings.

If it goes off in class and you leave class to answer it, you get 10 points off for leaving, as well as the 5pts for each ring.

(NOw, if the cellphone is on vibrate, no one can hear it. therefore, if you leave the class to answer the call, no one is going to know you're leaving b/c of a call ((could be b/c you have to go potty)), so therefore, no points taken off for that)

If it rings during a quiz, you get 10pts off for each ring.

If you leave the class during a quiz (to answer cellphone, go potty, whatever), it's an automatic fail.

If your cellphone rings during an exam, automatic Zero for your grade.

I have to say that I've never been in such silent environments...it's wonderful.....

[Kellanved]

19. Yes

But the last cell that rang in one of my classes was ... the prof's.

[Heddi]

21. ha ha that's funny

Too bad he can't give himself a zero for the exam ha ha.

It's funny too b/c when the class would have a break, or right after class ended, EVERYONE would rush out the door and start dialing their voice mail, calling people back, checking their messages, checking in with loved ones....

It's like a compulsion.

I have a cellphone, but I ONLY use it during certain situations----

I love my husband very much, but I don't have the need, or the desire, to call him every 5 minutes and ask "Whatcha doin'?"---which is pretty much what all the calls that were made during break/after class consisted of.

They were meaningless conversations that weren't necessary in the first place.

The consumerism of America has basically brainwashed us into believing that if we have a cellphone, we MUST USE IT ALL THE TIME, even if we don't have a need for it, even if there's not a conversation to be had...we have to USE IT! USE IT! USE IT!

[Kellanved]

27. Basically it's the same here

I'd even say that it's worse in Europe. In some European countries everyone has a cell (Italy, Luxenbourg); 73% of all Europeans own a cell.
AFAIR it's one in two in the US.

Now that market saturation is reached they're trying to sell useless features (downloadable Games, Ringtones, integrated cameras, multimedia-messages,...).
:shrug:


And yes: I own a cell, but I hardly use it - I almost never call anybody with it; it's for people calling me.

[Skittles]

11. You're much more polite than Skittles

last time that happened to me I screamed WHAT IS YOUR F***ING PROBLEM at the offender and the whole theater erupted in applause.

[ronnykmarshall]

13. Cyber high five!

That is the best revenge!

[Rainbowreflect]

5. I have 2 beefs re cell phones.

The folks that talk on their cell phones insted of pay attention when driving. I had one women almost hit me in the cross walk when she ran a red light because she was so busy talking away. I don't think she ever realized what she had done.
I also hate when someone is at a restaurant and are talking away on their phone & paying no attention to the person or people they are with. If someone did that to me I would be gone & would never go out with them again.

[DealsGapRider]

6. My pet peeve...

...is that I have Sprint PCS, which such shit straight out of a dog's ass. I can't get a signal to save my damned life.

[TrogL]

7. Ring tunes

My wife uses one called "Inspector Gadget". The problem is, the phone actually plays Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King".

A friend uses "Tocatta". It actually plays the fugue subject from the infamous Tocatta and Fugue in D-minor (which happened to be on the radio today).

[booksenkatz]

8. Grocery stores

People who hang on the phone telling the person on the other end every fuggin brand of cereal, juice, tampon so that they can make "decisions." I guess it's their air time and their money, but I personally don't like having to listen to these private discussions that are carried out in louder-than-normal volumes. I have to force myself not to lean in and get in on the conversation, know what I mean? "Hey, have you tried this brand of condoms? I think they're much better than the brand you two have been discussing."

Don't suck me into your WASPy boring-ass life minutiae against my will, OK?

[BlueJazz]

18. Man,O,Man...I couldn't agree more....

I was in Publix once (Florida chain) and this guy was yelling so loud
into the phone that I couldn't think..

ARE YOU SURE THAT WE DON"T NEED SOME TOILET PAPER..etc...Etc...

I finally lost it and said to him:
Damn, Fella, you know....You don't need to scream into a cell phone!
Christ!...You're talking so loud you could turn the thing off and your wife could still hear you at home!!
He started to say something but the guy down the aisle started clapping so he thought it best to shut-up.

[LeftCoast]

9. I only have a cell phone - no land line

But I'm constantly amazed at how rude people are with their phones. I try and always turn the phone to 'silent mode' when I'm going to be in a theater or class. Just yesterday some fool's cell phone went off in class and it just rang and rang. They never even tried to turn it off. The Prof. should've gone postal on 'em IMHO. :)

[Alenne]

12. I don't have one

Unless it affects me some way and it hasn't so far. I don't pay attention to people talking on their phone. I just can't bother to get peeved over something so unimportant.

[MissMillie]

15. At dinner in the restaurant

I turn my ringer OFF when I got into a restaurant. If I wanted to hear a phone ring during dinner, I'd stay home.

Not to mention, it's just plain rude to ignore the person you're dining with, and to eat in the ear of the person you're on the phone with.

[CanuckAmok]

16. Their existence. Nothing is too important that it can't wait...

...five minutes for you to get to a pay phone.

Oh, wait, payphones are being removed en masse because everybody uses cells now...

I hate them. Leashes.

Have you ever overheard NAYONE saying enything important on a cell phone?

What's more likely:

a) "...What you have there is the medula oblongata. Okay, listen carefully--you need to make the incision about two inches below the cerebral cortex..."

0r

b) Nothin', what are YOU doin'? Want to get sushi? Why not? Okay, uh huh, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, no. Okay, pizza it is..."

[FloridaJudy]

37. Bravo!

Good one.

[dfong63]

17. they're a health hazard

my beef is that cell phone radiation is a health hazard, both for cell phone users, and for the people who are unfortunate enough to have to live near a cell phone tower. these towers are being shoved down the throats of unwilling neighborhoods and communities. it's an affront to a democratic society.

[Deja Q]

34. True, but it also allows corporate america to work faster to make more $$$

Fucking corporate sleazebags.

Still, cell phones do have their uses... just wish they'd properly test these things before releasing them onto the unsuspecting public!

[TrogL]

20. silly cell phone incident

It was when I first got my phone. I thought I had shut it off before going into a meeting, but apparently I managed to turn it on instead. It rang during the meeting. So I made big show out of taking out the phone - ripping off the battery to make it stop ringing, putting the battery back on and leaving it on the desk.

Two minutes later it rang again. There's a circuit that keeps it powered up while you change batteries on the fly.

[TheYellowDog]

22. People who talk on the cell while driving

piss me off. It's been illegal in New York for almost two years to talk on the phone without driving unless you are using hands free apparatus, but everyone ignores the law. People talking on the cell and driving simultaneously, cause so many accidents.

[Castilleja]

23. It has the worst speaker ever...

I can't hear on it, and I don't like to talk loud on it. It can't really be heard ringing outside my purse's thick leather and has to be turned up, so after I open the flap **DA DA DA DA, DA DA DA DA** loudly emanates.

And my son, who loves to call me in HEB's to ask "hey, where are you?"
and "are you getting me candy/corndogs/Hotwheels, etc." :eyes:

But if you mean others phones, people who talk loudly. Talk while driving (I can't do this well, apparently nobody else can either!)

[bif]

24. Can't carry over the 3 trillion weekend minutes

Who can even come close to usiing tghe? And why not give you partial credit to use the carryover minutes towards prime time minutes?

[Heddi]

25. The fact that people use them to override their fear of being 'bored"

When I used to ride the bus 2x's a day, it was amazing the number of people that AS SOON AS THEY GOT ON THE BUS would pull out their cellphones and start jibber-jabbing away.

It took me some time to, I guess, realize what was going on.

The majority of the conversations all started out "hey...whatcha doin'?", and then led into (what I could gather based on my inability to drown out the one side of the conversation I was forced to listen to) a very meaningless phone call.

Or people would get on the bus and start checking voice mail, and changing their ring tones, and calling the house and checking the answering machine, and then checking email, and then re-checking voice mail---

I think that people are afraid of being bored.

Instead of pulling out a book, or a crossword puzzle, or just staring into space for 30 minutes, they felt the COMPULSION to always be doing something...fidgeting..pushing buttons....talking to people when there's no need to talk....

I think that we have become so accustomed to VIRTUAL EVERYTHING that we can't handle 10 minutes of 'downtime'----we feel the absolute need to be doing SOMETHING at EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY.

We see other people talking on cellphones and figure "hey...they have something to talk about, someone to talk to...I must be an inferior person because I don't have anything to talk about....so I'll create something to talk about, something to do, just so I'm more....elite"

When I'm in class, as soon as there's a break in class, or as soon as lecture is over, EVERYONE runs outside and starts checking the voice mail, checking the answering machine, checking instant messages, calling someone and starting out the conversation "hey! whatcha doin'?" and engaging in an unneeded 30 minute conversation.

And I really do think it's a compulsion for some people----I've seen people run out of class and call someone, and the conversation ends after about 3 minutes. So they IMMEDIATELY call someone else, and then call someone else, and then call someone else---it's as if we've become unable to either WAIT until you see that person to have a conversation with them, or we've become unable to actually have conversations with people face to face.

I have a cellphone, but we RARELY use it---only reason we got it was for the free long distance and for communication while I'm in school.

I love my husband very much, and he loves me---but we do not have the need, or the desire, to talk to each other EVERY TIME WE HAVE 4 MINUTES OF FREE TIME---I'd much rather wait until he's there with me, or we're person to person, to tell him about my rather boring day....

People are on cellphones in grocery stores, walking down the street, driving, on the bus, in class----it never ends.

And the sad part is that most of these conversations are totally unncessary.

A poster above mentioned people in the grocery store talking to someone and running down the list of ALLLL The cereals, and ALLLL The coffees....what happened to the idea of MAKING A LIST before you go? For all these years, have Americans been THAT unhappy with their partners' Grocery Buying Skills that now we must walk down the aisle and list every single choice on the shelves so that our Sig. Other can make a decision by proxy?

Of course we don't NEED to---but people feel OBLIGED to. Talking on a cellphone is the *COOL* thing to do.

People immediately get out of work and call their Sig. Other to tell them "i'm on the way home" as if they're engaging in some super human feat of riding the bus after getting off work. And I saw the SAME people do this EVERY DAY, At the SAME TIME EVERY DAY when they got on the bus to get home.

Are we that vapid a society that we are unable to remember when our spouses get off work, and what time they will approximately be home?

It's a sickness. I'm sure of it. An absolute sickness that has been caused by advertising and "peer pressure"....

[booksenkatz]

28. God, Heddi, that was great

If I tried to add a thought to your excellent post, it would only destroy the perfection.

Thank you!

[Emboldened Chimp]

39. That says it all

Thread over.

[zekeson]

26. People you are meeting with who take calls

I hate meeting a friend at a bar or for dinner and having them get a call. They go on forever about nothing. In the meantime I sit there twiddling my thumbs, trying not to listen to the boring conversation. Or, the reception is bad so they take the call outside. There you are, at the table by yourself. Horrible behavior and I only take it once. If it happens again, I'm pretty hard pressed to dine with them again.

[FloridaJudy]

29. Patients who hop off the exam table to answer their cell phones

In the middle of a medical exam. This happens more frequently than you would believe. Does holding one of those things to your ear several hours a day cause brain damage?

And as for the driver/talkers ---- Feh!

[bbernardini]

30. People who don't change their ring tone from that damn Nokia Waltz!!!

Stupid piece of crap ring tone. Learn how to use your damn phone. Me, I program Frank Zappa and James Brown ring tones into mine.

[Twenty3]

31. My boss

calls that White House comment line just about every day.

Then if we (I drive him around) are in a waiting room, or restaurant, or anywhere there's an audience, he likes to whip that cell phone out and call someone, anyone! and say stuff like "When I spoke with the White House this morning..."

[toddzilla]

32. the only useful

thing about cellphones that i can see, are..


emergency situations, and-


going to the video store and finding out that all the new releases are gone, and collaborating on what old movie to pick up.

[Capn Sunshine]

33. My Beef: backwards technology

phone transmission quality has reverted to the 30s.
The calls fade in and out.
They static and drop for no reason
you have to yell to be heard.

This is like the early days of phone service.
But it's acceptable in the 21st century for some reason.

[CanuckAmok]

35. how about this...

They "up the ante" for personal availability. It's not just a convenience to have one, people EXPECT you to have one. I'm a contractor, so I have to carry a cell when I'm on a job, because everyone else in my field does. I prefer to use a pager. You should see how hot under the collar some people get if they have to wait 2 minutes for me to return their page! Two freakin' minutes?! Sheesh, relax, already. Five years ago, you could go fifteen minutes before returning someone's call, and they'd be really impressed if it was less than half an hour!

I have my cell permanently forwarded to my pager. That way I get messages immediately, but don't have to talk to anyone unles I want to.

Screw 'em, they don't own me!! :)

[maxanne]

36. omg - cell phones in restaurants

I had dinner with a friend one night, and 2 tables away, a guy got 5 calls during dinner. Everyone cheered when during the last call, I yelled, "you must be really fucking important!"

I live in a no reception zone, so I have to go out in the driveway to use mine - and I use it for business, so that can be a little annoying. Oh well. I don't pay for it, my boss does - which is cool.

I've been in 2 car accidents this year. In May I hit a moose in the middle of nowhere around midnight. I was really glad I had the phone that night. Last week I was rear-ended on a highway on-ramp. Again, really glad I had it.

But people are idiots. I was walking down North Main St. in Concord, NH yesterday afternoon, and a young Eminem lookalike was talking loudly into his cell phone, and every other word out of his mouth was fuck. All the folks from the state house looked predictably horrified.

The older I get, the less fearful I am about calling people on their abysmal behavior.

[Gopens]

38. Only thing cell phones are good for ...

... is calling for help if your car is overturned in some ditch and you're still in it. Otherwise, the cell phone is the worst thing to come along since the Christian Coalition.

It amazes me that people seem to have no appreciation of privacy anymore. They have to be reachable at ALL TIMES, and I just don't get it. To me, a cell phone call is an intrusion. Nothing irritates more more than walking into a restaurant and looking around and seeing more cell phones on tables than drink glasses. And they always, ALWAYS ring.

Full disclosure: I have one because my girlfriend insists on it, but it never leaves my car. Just in case there's a ditch out to get me somewhere.

Just got my hair cut today and was already irritated because the place was crowded and hot and the wait was long, but I had those delightful ringing phones to keep me company. At the very least, if I have to live with cell phones, I wish more people would embrace the "Vibrate" mode.

Earlier in the week I was at a volleyball game and the occasional cell phone could be heard loud and clear from the other side of the gym. The match went on, and officials just let the damn things ring, like it was part of the game.

I really, REALLY hate cell phones. I realize hate is a strong word, so maybe ... nah, I fuckin' hate 'em.

[DEM FAN]

40. That Everybody Has A Cell Phone But Me.

:-(

[harper]

41. People who can't buy a SINGLE item at the store

without checking with who knows who on the cell phone. Drives me nuts. I have a cell phone and I get a lot of use out of it...but I only use it for OUTGOING calls. Unless I'm calling someone, I keep it turned off. Why in the world would I want to be answering a ringing phone while I'm driving or otherwised engaged out in public? When I see someone on the cell phone at the grocery store I feel like ripping it off their ear and screaming at them "Are you so weak minded that you can't make a single decision on your own?". Jeese, I guess I am a crank!

[NightTrain]

42. Actually, cell phones are made of plastic, not beef.

:dunce: