BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off

Subject: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 08:46 AM

I think I'm fairly diligent when it comes to switching off my mobile phone and observing the etiquette/rules of various functions and locations, gigs, hospitals, etc.

Of course, the one time I did forget...

Having been student of art in my youth, I finally got to see Edvard Munch's "The Scream" for real in Olso a couple of years ago, in a very hushed National Gallery. I had just escaped from the office and I was standing there, right in front of it, like three feet away, when...

What a prat.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: khandu
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:04 AM

I didn't do it, thankfully, but at an Andy M. Stewart concert last year in Jackson, MS, Stewart got rather upset at a lady that interrupted his performance with her phone. It was a distasteful display and it paled the evening.

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:15 AM

This happened (to someone else!) at an opera I was at a month ago. They were not popular.

A similar event happened at an amateur performance of Checkov's "The Cherry Orchard" some four months back. At a crucial point of silent tension, at the climax of the show, a voice from the back said loudly "Doesn't he look like some actor or other?"

A few weeks later, the monthly mag arrived where the director made some rather vicious comments about people who don't know how to behave in theatres. A month after that, the wife of the man wrote in to say he is near-deaf and as a consequence was totally unaware how loud his 'whispered' aside was and how put out she was by the lack of understanding and support for someone who had, in fact, been attending those amateur productions for many years... All in all, an unpleasant interlude for all concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:22 AM

... and the one time I forgot to turn mine off was at a company meeting. All the staff gather to listen to his highness the Great Chairman when in the middle of his talk my phone goes off... all is silence while everyone watches ... listens ... "Sorry, wrong number".

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:27 AM

Mine always manages to go off in the loo.... I can sit for hours all day, but as soon as I get up to go to the loo, beep beep bingley beep!

I did manage to interrupt a counselling session with it once, and it went off as soon as I set foot in the National Portrait Gallery, but haven't yet had it go off in a concert, it's usually on silent then, which doesn't help, because I forget about it and when it vibrates in my pocket I jump up and go Oooh!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: paddymac
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:57 AM

It may be that the best solution is to leave the damned thing in the car, or somewhere. Then you could rediscover the true joy of freedom from obnoxious technology, not to mention the privilege of simply not being disturbed.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: michaelr
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:11 PM

I avoid that sort of situation by steadfastly refusing to acquire a mobile phone. It can be done, really! You may be surprised...

Michael

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:13 PM

A very appropriate bit of technology to be associated with The Scream.

In fact looking at the picture with that in mind, it actually looks very much as if she is on her mobile.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:16 PM

But if I didn't have a mobile, how would I ever be able to find my wife's mobile when she's left it lying around somewhere? (And vice-versa.)

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:37 PM

Isn't that what vibrate mode is for???

I never have my phone on any other setting...

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 01:22 PM

So far I have eschewed the cell phone, but I once had a digital watch that would give a little "beepbeep!" at the top of the hour. It used to go off at some of the damnedest times. I kept forgetting to turn it off when I should have. But I'm not the only one. Once at an opera, there was a dramatic point in the plot (such as it was) during which the orchestra and the singers were taking a four-bar rest. It happened right at the top of the hour, and suddenly during that brief silence it sounded like the whole opera house was undergoing a plague of crickets.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: IvanB
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 01:49 PM

Not a cell phone faux pas (we never turn ours on except to make a call, so nobody would be able to reach us that way anyhow), but in my last few years of working I referred to another manager, and to a policy he had put in place, quite disparagingly while on the phone with another employee. Turned out she was on speakerphone with the culprit sitting beside her in her office. Perhaps he took the hint, though, because he never referred to the incident and rescinded the policy shortly thereafter.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Bert
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:24 PM

Ha LTS, reminds me of the time before cell phones when one of our managers was very proud of his newly acquired beeper.

Everyone in the office conspired to call him every time he went to the bathroom.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:52 PM

Ah yes, I was once part of a conspiracy to interrupt a very important meeting every 5 mins with the same method... the meeting was one about our group phone answering and how we were supposed to be able to complete a set task in a certain time frame. He got the hint and loosened the restrictive times....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Banjer
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 03:10 PM

Totally aside from having one go off at the most inoportune time.....I happened to be in a store the other day when this lady who obviously hadn't had her phone very long got a call. She fumbles around in her purse for it, fianlly dredging it up and fumbling with various buttons until she figured out how to answer the damn thing....after a few minutes of conversation with what I assumed was her husband I lost it when she asked the party she was talking to: 'But how did you know to call me here?'...I was too busy loosing it to notice if her hair was blonde or not!!

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 07:43 PM

OI, Manitas is neither blonde nor female, but he still can't work his phone properly after 10 months of having it!!!

He can't work mine at all, because all the numbers have worn off.... he can't work out how I can text so fast when I don't have the letters to look at..... poor thing.

It's very easy to forget where you are with a mobile phone. We have 2 cordless phones in the house and I'm forever picking up the wrong one, taking it outside thinking it's the mobile and wondering why it goes dead when I get to the end of the road....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST,DW at work (pulled the night shift again)
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 07:48 PM

Was kinda "busy" with the girlfriend one evening and forgot to turn the phone off. Mom wondered why it took a while for me to answer.

DW

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: artbrooks
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 08:00 PM

Herself and I both have them, but I'm the only one that has her phone number, and only she and our daughter have mine...like Clinton's, they are set on "vibrate" all the time. Since I won't talk on the thing while I'm driving, there have been a few interesting episodes when I've had to find a place to pull off to take a call, or (more often) to return a message.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 08:09 PM

I put mine on vibrate/silent at work, but one day left it on the desk. It made more noise vibrating the desk than it would have on ring!

- Way to go DW! At least it wasn't another less explainable woman!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 12:15 AM

It wasn't my mobile, but in the car next to me while we both waited for the red light to change and turn right at a major intersection. I glanced at his car and noticed the obviously show-off yuppie type driver light a cigarette with his right hand, while holding a can of drink in the left. When his mobile went off (no hands-free kit), he had a real juggling act on his hands.... which got rapidly worse when the lights changed - and his car was a manual!!!!!! Yessssss!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Helen
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 01:52 AM

There used to be a very funny show on Oz TV called Full Frontal, a series of (usually unrelated )skits each week. One which I tell people about fairly regularly is the sleazy-looking, show-off, yuppie type talking long and loudly on his mobile phone at the bar, right near the TV set. Suddenly his real mobile phone rings and it turns out he has been talking in a one-sided, pretend conversation on the TV remote control.

Might lose a bit in translation, but the actors in the show are all wizards at minimalist comedy based on characterisation & body language etc.

I used to mimic people with the early mobile phones who would stand out in the street (poor reception anywhere but in the street) with their arm up in the air and a look on their face that said "Look at me - I have /can afford a mobile phone".

I don't give my number out, don't turn it on unless I'm expecting a pre-arranged call or if I want to make a call, which is rare, and usually only in emergencies. Handy things if you control it and don't let it, and other people, control you.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST,Uncle Steve
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 04:25 PM

I was at a Cliff Eberhart concert (a "nice" formal concert venue) when someone's phone went off, and the guy actually took the call. Cliff stopped playing and waited... I think he was just starting the song... and the audience got really uncomfortable. The guy quickly finished the call and said...

"Hey, some of us have to work, you know."

Cliff's response, after a long beat...

"Bless your heart."

And the concert went on.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST,Just Amy
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 04:34 PM

I was touring Florida after the Folk Alliance Conference last February. I was at Kennedy Space Center and they were going through my purse (security since 9/11 you know). The guard asked me to press some buttons so that they could tell it was really a cell phone. Just as I pushed something, my phone went off. Scared us both to death. Anyway, it was my boss looking for something on my computer. It was the only time on my vacation that he called me.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 09:13 PM

Now lets see if this non-technology person has this right.

It is not OK to have a cell phone ring in meetings, plays, theater, etc.

BUT it is OK to have your vibrator on during these things.

Hey - I think I might like technology after all!

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 10:00 PM

Lyle, it depends entirely on WHERE you have your vibrator.

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 11:18 PM

The ONE time I forgot to switch IT off ...me wife had an orgasim thru the ceiling

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 01:40 AM

Lyle, it also helps if you don't shout 'Ooh' and go through the ceiling whenever it goes off in your pocket....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 07:12 AM

Hey, this thread is beginning to get really interesting. Keep it up (Oooh Er Missus!).

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: The one time you forgot to switch it off
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 11:19 AM

LTS says, "...it also helps if you don't shout 'Ooh' and go through the ceiling whenever it goes off in your pocket...."

Liz, is there more of a story there than you're telling??

Just curious!

Lyle