primitives annoyed by cellular telephones

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6840333

Oh my.

The primitives and franksolich have something in common.

I hope it's the ONLY thing we have in common.

daedalus_dude (274 posts)        Fri Oct-23-09 11:48 AM
Original message
 
Telephones annoy the hell out of me these days. 

As useful as they may be in emergencies and for long-distance conversations, their abundant presence in everyday life totally get on my nerves.

Not only are they everywhere, people also expect you to carry an activated one at all times. And from my experience, many people expect that, if they call you, you at that very moment are ready to stop whatever it is you are doing and have a ten minute conversation, and get offended if you cut them off.

And people complain if your cellphone is switched off for an extended period of time.

And people think that, because everyone has a phone, that gives them the right to re-negotiate appointments at short-notice at all times.

People talk on them while driving and cause wrecks. Or they sit next to you on a train and have a loud conversation about the details of their private life that you wish they would keep to themselves. Teenagers use them to play their annoying shit-music right next to you, and of course, everything you do is recorded on cell-cam.

And if you are talking to someone and their phone rings, somehow the phone instantly becomes more important than whatever it was you were talking about, and they find it perfectly fine to stop talking to you in order to have a ten-minute conversation about some shit with whoever it is that is calling.

I know all of this is a blessing because of the possibilities, but I think its also sometimes a curse.

I like the internet, and I think email is a good way to communicate most of the time. It is polite, because you leave it up to the recipient when, or if, they want to answer.

HysteryDiagnosis (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-23-09 11:54 AM
Response to Original message
 
2. My favorites are the ones who force you to listen to their up volume private conversations. They won't walk away out of earshot, they won't tone it down, they wallow in the fact that they are on the phone and your're not. They disgust me... rude they are, very very rude.

vadawg  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-23-09 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
 
3. lol i so understand you, i cant believe the people who whilst i am talking to them answer their cellphone, then proceed to give a detailed description of whats happening and then they are surprised when i stop lecturing them and just issue the ticket instead.

driver8  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-23-09 11:56 AM
Response to Original message
 
5. I agree with you 100%!

I carry a cell phone in my car for emergencies, and that's about it. I have no need to be connected to the world 24/7. People are amazed when I tell them that I don't even know my cell phone number, or that I don't have their number "programmed" into my phone.

Those of you walking around with your earpieces in and talking to yourselves -- you look like idiots.

The defrocked warped primtiive:

Warpy  (1000+ posts)        Fri Oct-23-09 11:56 AM
Response to Original message

6. The phone company gave me all their services and I've just never bothered to set them up. I really don't need them. All I have is a land line, what the hell do I need call forwarding for?

I'm with you, I'd much rather communicate via email.

The W.C. Fields primitive:

Joe Fields (1000+ posts)        Fri Oct-23-09 12:40 PM
Response to Original message
 
24. Highly recommended!!!! My sentiments, exactly.

Every state in the union should have laws banning the use of cell phones. I drive for a living, and I can tell you some horror stories concerning people I've witnessed using cell phones while driving.

I have never owned a cell phone and do not plan to ever own one. In my day there were phone booths on street corners and in gas stations. I hate what telephones have become.

quiet.american  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-23-09 12:45 PM
Response to Original message
 
25. I hate cell phones, too. Or, more specifically, the lack of manners in using them.

I've come to accept it's probably a generational thing; those coming up behind me have largely grown up in the era of cell phones and "open privacy," and this all seems to be fine with them. Yet when I look around me at how "wired" everyone is today, I'm amazed at how willingly the public follows a "herd" mentality.

Yesterday in a subway car, a person next to me was deep into her cellphone -- playing solitaire. Two other people stood by the subway car doors deep into their cellphones. As we exited the car, I noticed they, too, had been playing solitaire.

When I transferred to my next train, I sat next to a woman who was -- you got it, deep into her cellphone playing solitaire. Again, two other people standing at the car doors were also playing solitaire. A guy re-positioned himself in the car and ended up standing next to me, and -- you got it-- he was on his cellphone playing solitaire. Down the length of the car, almost everyone else was wired into their ipods, and each one's earbuds were emitting supremely ANNOYING sound leakage, with their wearers blissfully standing around pretending it hasn't occurred to them that they're immensely annoying the "unwired" around them with their shite music (as the OP so aptly put it.)

I looked down the length of the car and maybe there were six or seven people in it who weren't wired. (Being wired isn't a bad thing in itself, but looking down the length of the car, it was almost Twilight Zone-ish, in that almost everyone in the car was hooked up to something.)

Now on to actual cell phones -- yesterday, I heard someone across the street yelling crap about her boyfriend -- I thought she was yelling up to someone in an apartment building -- but she was on a damn cellphone and you could hear her nonsense literally down the whole length of the street.

I've bitched for years about how literally, every single day, there are people left and right, back and front of me yap, yap, yapping away -- and what is it with women when they get on the bus (full disclosure: I'm a woman). The minute she sits down, out comes the cell phone. I never knew people had so much to say to each other ALL THE TIME.

Let's not even get into being out with a friend; if our time together is somehow not interrupted by he/she whipping out their cell phone and staring pensively at its touchscreen, the first moment that there is some kind of "break" -- like ordering another round of drinks -- out comes the cell phone.

I do have a cellphone -- but don't try reaching me on it; people are shocked when they breathlessly inform me they've been trying to reach me on my cellphone and I tell them I always keep it turned off (and only a few people have the number anyway)-- and no -- none of them were ever trying to reach me for anything vitally important, that they couldn't just leave me a voicemail on. I use my cellphone maybe a half-dozen times a year, and when I do, I keep it short and try not to end up yap, yap, yapping away in someone's ear.

Boy was this a long rant and I could probably keep going for another ten paragraphs. Thanks to the OP for the chance to commiserate.

[thundley4]

I don't have a problem with my cell phone, no one has the number but those I gave it to.  I do find other peoples usage of them annoying sometimes, so I try and not do what annoys me .

[Splashdown]

vadawg  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-23-09 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
 
3. lol i so understand you, i cant believe the people who whilst i am talking to them answer their cellphone, then proceed to give a detailed description of whats happening and then they are surprised when i stop lecturing them and just issue the ticket instead.

I hate when people use the word "whilst."

[IassaFTots]

I hate when people use the word "whilst."

One would think that if someone uses the word "whilst" they would have better grammar everywhere else around it.

[GOBUCKS]

daedalus_dude (274 posts)        Fri Oct-23-09 11:48 AM
Original message
 
And if you are talking to someone and their phone rings, somehow the phone instantly becomes more important than whatever it was you were talking about, and they find it perfectly fine to stop talking to you in order to have a ten-minute conversation about some shit with whoever it is that is calling.

You have to remember that the cell phone talker here has been engaged in conversation with a DUmmy. It's almost certain the call is more important and interesting than talking to this DUmmy.

There've been many times when I have left my office for an unnecessary, waste-of-time meeting and, on the way out, asked my secretary to wait 15 minutes and then call my cell number. Slick as a whistle, I'm out of the meeting without offending anyone by simply ignoring the meeting notice.

[debk]

The only time I will always take a call is when it is from one of my kids.

I don't when I am with a client, unless it is relavant to the client.

The rest of the time....it just depends.

[Traveshamockery]

One would think that if someone uses the word "whilst" they would have better grammar everywhere else around it.

Amen!