Are people being rude?

April 7, 2002 12:04 PM

Are people being rude? Is William F. Buckley turning into Andy Rooney?
posted by Ty Webb (12 comments total)

Somebody bought us an answering machine back in the early 90's, and I remember exactly what my father said when I asked him why he refused to hook it up. He didn't want his superiors leaving messages for him on sick days. He didn't want them leaving him messages on Friday afternoon, asking if he could come in over the weekend.

Now I'm glad he still hasn't hooked it up, because I don't need my boss leaving me messages... "I just signed this contract and I want to do this site really good, and get it done fast! I need you to work on this over the weekend..."

I don't have a cell phone because there are times when I don't want to be reached, and there are people who I don't want to be able to reach me any time of day. Neither do I feel like explaining to said people why my phone was off.

Email isn't as direct, timely or intimate as the phone, so in that case I can just fall back on "oh, haven't checked my email lately, I've been pretty busy..."

I'm not rude. I see it as preservation of my privacy.

Another thing I don't like about cell phones it that they're destroying "quiet time." Back in the day, you used to have some time to yourself while walking somewhere, etc... where you could think, be calm, relax. Now, you whip out the cell and dial up your friend to chat.
posted by tomorama at 12:24 PM on April 7, 2002

This seemed like a fairly reasonable article to me, albeit one that treads some pretty well-trod terrain. What's so Andy Rooney about it?
posted by rodii at 12:31 PM on April 7, 2002

If you don't want to respond to the emails, voicemails, and messages, then don't. "Sorry boss, I was camping this weekend and didn'd get the message till Sunday." I'd rather do than than answer the phone and get directly roped into something.
posted by y0mbo at 3:06 PM on April 7, 2002

Only if they accuse William Buckley of turning into an Andy Rooney. :)
posted by onegoodmove at 3:20 PM on April 7, 2002

Now, you whip out the cell and dial up your friend to chat.

And openly in public. Remember way back when, people actually went into a phone booth to make their calls. Privately!
posted by HTuttle at 3:43 PM on April 7, 2002

On the elevator is the worst. It takes the phrase 'captive audience' into violations-of-the-Geneva-Convention territory.
posted by y2karl at 5:01 PM on April 7, 2002

On the elevator is the worst. It takes the phrase 'captive audience' into violations-of-the-Geneva-Convention territory.

Is that somehow worse than people just carrying on a conversation with each other in an elevator while the other occupants are forced to listen?
posted by epimorph at 5:16 PM on April 7, 2002

The author of the article understates how annoying spam is. Other than that, people without answering services and/or email aren't so much rude as excluding themselves from stuff. It's people who ring you when you're out and don't leave messages that are rude.

Meanwhile, people who ring you on their speaker phone, wait for you to pickup the phone and have the handset next to your ear before picking up their own phone with a massive, deafening clunk are my "ToKill" list.
posted by krisjohn at 7:57 PM on April 7, 2002

Is that somehow worse than people just carrying on a conversation with each other in an elevator while the other occupants are forced to listen?

In most cases, yes. People who talk to their neighbor in an elevator usually just talk. On the other hand, when they're on a cell phone, cell phone + elevator + hokey pokey reception + interference = conversation at deafening volume.
posted by tomorama at 8:31 PM on April 7, 2002

The author of the article understates how annoying spam is.

I'm not sure it's possible to put into words how annoying it is ;)
posted by jaden at 9:52 PM on April 7, 2002

It's people who ring you when you're out and don't leave messages that are rude.

Uh-oh. So what about half-written and never-posted MeFi comments?

[Click] brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
posted by rory at 5:40 AM on April 8, 2002

My husband turned off our answering machine months ago, after years of having either a machine or voice mail to answer the phone (and screen calls).

Strangely, we haven't missed it a bit. People who are close to us either e-mail or (a select few) have the cell phone number. (Which does have voice mail. But so few people have the number that it's not a problem.)

There's no longer the guilt of seeing 10 messages that you haven't gotten around to listening to yet. And if the phone rings at dinner time? We often don't bother answering unless we're expecting a call. We have taken control over the phone instead of letting it control us. It's kind of nice. The only reason I can imagine turning the machine back on is if one of us was job-hunting and expecting calls from potential employers.

I remember about a decade ago, thinking "how did I ever live without the answering machine?" But now I wonder why I ever lived with it. Of course, I didn't have e-mail as an alternative contact method then.
posted by litlnemo at 7:03 AM on April 8, 2002