To quote Jeffrey Jones as Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: “Cuh-rist.”
To elaborate, it seems that with every technological advance we make, humans themselves become a little more childish. Remember how your teachers used to take your Walkman (or iPod or whatever-the-fuck else) from you if you used it in class? News flash: They were correct. Now we’re all adults. Fucking act like one.
The headline alone of this New York Times article says it all: “Mind Your BlackBerry or Mind Your Manners.” And the lede:
For the first half-hour of the meeting, it was hardly surprising to see a potential client fiddling with his iPhone, said Rowland Hobbs, the chief executive of a marketing firm in Manhattan.
At an hour, it seemed a bit much. And after an hour and a half, Mr. Hobbs and his colleagues wondered what the man could possibly be doing with his phone for the length of a summer blockbuster.
Someone peeked over his shoulder. “He was playing a racing game,” Mr. Hobbs said. “He did ask questions, though, peering occasionally over his iPhone.”
Of course he peered occasionally over his iPhone. He didn’t want to seem like a total douche. (Note: He’s a total douche.)
[A] spirited debate about etiquette has broken out. Traditionalists say the use of BlackBerrys and iPhones in meetings is as gauche as ordering out for pizza. Techno-evangelists insist that to ignore real-time text messages in a need-it-yesterday world is to invite peril.
My God, man! First you want to order pizza for the group and now you condone BlackBerry use under the guise of a “need-it-yesterday” world? We can only assume that some consultant will argue the virtues of having a smartphone at the ready during a business meeting.
Clients assume they can get you anytime, anywhere,” said David Brotherton, a media consultant in Seattle. “Consultants who aren’t readily available 24/7 tend to languish.”
Barf. If you’re using consultants, you clearly don’t know two things about yourself or your business. 1) A consultant will borrow your watch and then bill you for telling you what time it is. 2) You’re an asshole and your business sucks.
Back to the matter at hand. The Times goes pretty much down the middle in this one. For every pro-smartphone quote, there’s an anti-smartphone quote. Except here’s the thing, people:
IT’S NEVER OK TO TEXT, CHECK MESSAGES, PLAY A GAME, READ NOTES FROM YOUR KIDS, EVER, IN A MEETING. EVER. EVER. There’s no better way of telling someone that you think their meeting is for shit than by texting during it. And there’s no better way to look like a dick. And everyone is talking about you afterward. Everyone.
Look, we’re not bad guys. We know meetings suck. Most of them are about as necessary as a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but don’t be the asshole checking the phone. Everyone knows you’re an asshole already. Now they’ve added “Self-important prick” to the list of shit they don’t like about you. Don’t believe me?
Mr. Brotherton, the consultant, wrote in an e-mail message that it was customary now for professionals to lay BlackBerrys or iPhones on a conference table before a meeting — like gunfighters placing their Colt revolvers on the card tables in a saloon. “It’s a not-so-subtle way of signaling ‘I’m connected. I’m busy. I’m important. And if this meeting doesn’t hold my interest, I’ve got 10 other things I can do instead.’ ”
What are those 10 others things, Mr. Brotherton? Guesses:
totally agree/concur
Some day, with your help, the State of Alabama will beat rickets. Then maybe they’ll teach everyone how to read.