Turn. Off. Your. Damn. Cell. Phone.

What’s the one thing worse than listening to idiots talk on their cell phones all day long in inappropriate ways? You guessed it—listening to people rail against the idiots and their cell phones. And yet here I go, I can’t help it. Lately I’ve been noticing an exponential increase in the amount of irritating cell phone abusers in this city. I don’t want to be as annoying as these buffoons so I’ll just mention the one cell phone offense that has been making me crazy all week:

Talking on your cell phone while being waited on by someone.

When I was young I had several jobs in which I had to interact with the public. My first job at the age of 15 was working the counter at Wolfy’s Hot Dogs in Chicago at $2.10 an hour. I later walked the floors at my grandfather’s clothing store, Karoll’s Red Hanger Shop, on State Street just across from Marshall Field’s, and I spent my college years dishing out boeuf bourgignon and spinach crepes at a wonderful French restaurant called Gare St. Lazare on Armitage and Halsted. I realized early on that working with the public was not my life’s calling. I found it difficult to deal with the belligerent junk food consumers who complained that the tomatoes on their hot dogs weren’t red enough or the ones who ordered hot dogs with everything on it but hold the hot dog and then yelled at me because the manager insisted that I charge them full price for a steamed bun swimming in condiments. At the clothing store I grew weary of the people who expected me to follow them around exclusively for a good hour, as if I were their personal shopper at Harrod’s, even though they had no intention of buying a single thing and left our dressing rooms looking like the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina. And at the restaurant I could barely hide my contempt for the posers who would send back bottle after bottle of perfectly good wine and then stub out their cigarettes right on their dinner plates in a puddle of beurre blanc sauce even though the ashtray was three inches away.

Yes, consumers can be boorish and inconsiderate, and there have always been those who refuse to look directly at the people helping them as if making eye contact would doom them to a life of retail drudgery. But at least back in the 1970s we could more or less get the attention of the people we were attempting to serve. I don’t think I would last ten minutes in retail today if I had to cope with the inconsiderate boor’s new handmaiden: the cell phone.

It’s bad enough to even talk on a cell phone in a public space such as a restaurant or store and force innocent bystanders to listen to piercingly loud accounts of the banalities of your life. But what’s been driving me over the edge this week is the people I’ve seen who don’t even pause from their conversations when they reach the head of a line or when a waiter or waitress is waiting for their order. I was in a crowded Starbucks the other day and watched two different people get to the front of a line and hold out their finger to the barista who was waiting for their order as if to say, “hey buddy, I’m on an important call, I’ll give you my order when I’m good and ready, to hell with the 15 people waiting patiently behind me.” Do you think I’d last very long in the Starbucks empire if I treated every cell phone as a Romulan cloaking device and ignored that customer until the phone was back in their pocket where it belonged? My Star Trek imagery is appropriate considering the wireless earpieces these idiots tend to wear all day long that make them look like Lieutenant Uhura wannabes. Please adjust your intergalactic frequencies before we enter warp speed. Yes, I wear such an earpiece when I’m in my car, but I would never keep it on while in a restaurant or at some other social encouter, like a warning to whomever I’m with that I will jump at the chance to talk to someone more interesting than they are.

I was in line at a fancy Beverly Hills shop the other day that actually sported a sign that said “We will be happy to serve you when you are not on your cell phone.” Right on, I thought. Except at that very moment a young woman clutching an iPhone to her ear and a distant gaze in her eyes waltzed up to the counter and never paused from the excruciating play-by-play of her boring day. She tried to fish out her money with her one available hand and despite the sign, the hapless clerk just accepted the rude behavior. At Whole Foods that night I noticed several people yammering away on their Helios or Sidekicks as the cashier rang up their orders. The cell phone use didn’t necessarily slow down the line in those cases but it still infuriated me since the talkers never made eye contact with the Whole Foods employees and treated them like they were faceless automatons.

Yesterday I was having lunch with a friend at one of my favorite coffee shops when a sitcom star we both recognized entered the café wearing a Gene Roddenberry-inspired earpiece. She continued her conversation in full volume, her hands gesticulating wildly, her cell phone not visible. She looked like a crazy woman and the entire café had to listen to her semi-hysterical tirade. I’d blame it on the stress caused by the WGA strike except this woman seemed so used to talking that way that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn her earpiece had been surgically implanted during her last botox treatment.

Technology is a wonderful thing. It’s hard to even imagine how we managed our busy lives before the advent of cell phones. Yet their role in the decay of everyday social graces is mind-boggling. Oh, I’m not blaming the innocent little cell phone, a handy and sometimes lifesaving device, just the lummoxes who can’t pause from their cell phone addiction long enough to realize how incredibly rude and irritating they are being to the real life human beings who are trying to help them. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Other trends I’ve noticed in the past few months include people unabashedly using their cell phones in movie theatres without apology, bike riders holding their phones to their ears as they careen down busy city streets, and drivers texting their friends while entering perilous intersections. If I’m not felled by a cell phone driver some time in the coming year, I may find myself frothing at the mouth from a bad case of cell phone rage. I say we send a strong message to these abusers.

Workers of the World Unite:
Stop Serving People Who Are Talking on Their Cell Phones!

Comments

[communicatrix]

I know what to get someone for his biiiirthday...

[Arlene]

Danny, I feel the same way you do about this. I cannot stand listening to someone yacking away on their cell when I am out at a restaurant or standing in line in the store. I even turn my cell phone on silent when I go out. I would turn it off, but I like to keep it on just in case. If it's important my kids will text me to call them, then I usually go outside and call them. I also can't stand when people are talking and not paying attention to their driving. By the way, I remember when you worked at Wolfys. Best hot dogs around. My first job at 15 was at Burger King. I remember people ordering a whopper with no meat, and having the same arguments about having to spend the same amount of money. I hear the same stories today. My youngest sons first job was at a hot dog place by our house, then McDonalds. Well he got tire of that (for the same reasons I did) and now works part time at a body shop and part time at a car wash, in between going to college!

[Marcia (down with dial tones)]

Oy, Danny, you are soooo right ! Working retail has never been for the weak-kneed, and now this new, not-to-be-believed level of rudeness. Let's hope that people who can't bear to be detached from their cell phones for 15 seconds will always be too distracted to complain about the poor slobs trying to serve them, for crying out loud.

And cell phones at the movies? Extreme as it is (and personally painful), I’m no longer going to the movies until theaters install cell phone jammers (you go, communicatrix !). Do any of you in L.A. know of any theaters in town that use jammers?

[cruisin-mom]

You go Danny! I've even seen people in the dentist office, or doctor's office, who keep the doctor waiting, while they are on the phone. That's UNBELIEVABLE! (and I'm talking about doctor's who actually run on time, not the ones who keep us waiting)

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

OY VEY!
I think they should ban ALL Cell phones in Public Places, PERIOD! I can't help but think about smoking and how it was EVERYWHERE back in the day, and most people thought nothing of it...That's pretty much under control here in L.A., but the Cell Phone has taken it's place of importance in a way that seems totally insane. What did everybody do before cell phones? How did people stay in touch? Oh Dear, was it really that difficult? What is this obsession with having to be "in touch" with everyone all day and evening, even when you are with other people??? I wonder if these people stay hooked up to that ear device while they sleep, too???
I don't get any of it, so I am one of those people you spoke of first....luckily, because of my Health Issues, I don't have to be exposed to the rude behavior of people in restaurants, movie theatres, etc...I think if I had to put up with that crap, there would be a mass murder or sorts....Personally, I have no patience with any of it!

[Fornya]

I just don't get it either. Most of the time when I'm at a restaurant or in line to check out of a store, if my iPhone buzzes in my pocket I don't even take it out to see who it is. I discretely push the button that sends people directly to voicemail.

This contemporary impulse for instant contact and download of the day's droll events is wicked bizarre.

[Sue Katz]

I was walking up the street one dark night in Israel where everyone already had two cell phones, while in the States it was still a rare cutting-edge accessory. Suddenly a guy behind me started screaming, "Hey bitch! You hold on there or I'm going to kick your butt!" I whipped around and there he was, pounding up the sidewalk toward me, gesticulating. I didn't know him, but he was pouring out abuse and threats on me. As he bore down on me - only the two of us out there - I turned to take a stance, and he rushed by, a wired bud in his ear, his fists pumping the air. I doubt he ever saw me. He certainly had no idea that he had caused my "fight/flight" mechanism to pump out those freak-out hormones and when I caught my breath and eventually calmed down, I felt bad for the woman on the end of that line.
The thing about the cell phone is that when you're on it, you're elsewhere. It prevents you from noticing any annoyance or mayhem you may be causing in your wake.
Thanks for standing up for service workers, Danny.
Sue

[Dan]

Yes, thank you. I see this all the time when people are checking out at the supermarket. And I feel a strange urge to apologize and try to be the checkout person's best friends. The other place is at the gym. Nonstop talking while working next to me on the elliptic machine.

[Special Needs Mama]

I've actually taken to telling people to stop. I don't care if they hate me, or think me rude. It's rude of them to invade public space that way. Right on. I'm with ya.

[Mindy]

I recently watched a friend of mine answer her cell phone during a job interview. I couldn't believe it!!! She didn't get the job.

[Pam G]

How about using a cell phone as you are being wheeled into surgery? My boss called me three times from his cell phone on Thurs. Jan. 17 while he was being put under local anesthesia. I could hear them telling him to put it away. Repeatedly. When I suggested that he shouldn't use a cell phone in a hospital he replied, "Oh. It's an outpatient facility." When I said "You need to focus on your procedure and let the medicine take effect," he asked me to transfer him to someone else in the company so he could badger them instead. Of course, there was nothing he told me in any of those conversations that couldn't have waited until the next day he was in the office or even the next week for that matter. And the next time he was in the office, he came in my office and repeated to me everything he'd told me during these ridiculous cell phone conversations a day or two before.

This same person types emails during business meetings while not making eye contact with me or whomever is in the meeting. He also talks on the land line and the cell phone at the same time in the office while typing emails on his lap top and not making eye contact with the real humans in his office who have come to see him on unrelated matters. Further, he runs out of business meetings to yak on his cell and then returns to ask questions about things resolved during his five min. or longer absence from the meeting. He's also one of those swerving all over the road while screaming into the cell and once said to me, "They say I'm a bad driver? You think?"

I have put up with this every working day for nearly 7 years. It's a new world of rudeness out there people.

And yes, I was once almost run down and killed by a woman driving and talking on her cell. She ran a red light when I was in the pedestrian cross-walk and were it not for a school-crossing guard who jumped in between me and her car I would not be here to join in Danny's rant today.

I share your frustrations, Danny!

[Amelia]

You are so right on with this one! I don't even know where the begin, so I'll just say you are very right! :)

[Maria]

Recently my daughter was driving me somewhere and she answered a text message while waiting for a green light. I was appalled. She said she only does it when the car is stopped but all I could see was the slippery slope. Now I only send her text messages when I can be fairly certain that she's not in her car.

[Patsy]

Right on Danny. I work in a doctors office, try checking in a patient who won't come up for air. I have had many a cell phone user have me wait. Maybe I should put cell phone removal as the reason for the visit.

[Scott G]

Dateline: the frozen shadows of Von Steuben HS (top 20 ranking in both boys and girls basketball, thank you) Thanks for reminding me of how great Gare St. Lazare was. Also, regarding your theme and how to avoid the problem of listening to loud mobile phone users: stop going to Starbucks and Whole Foods as they are magnets for self important boors, me being one of them. Keep up the good work though.

[Rosa]

A friend from work gave me a ride, we were going to a party. I was in her car for about 3 minutes when her cell rang. She said, "Don't pay any attention to what I'm about to say. It's nothing, it's my boyfriend." As if I could ignore that yelling at the guy on the other end. I swear, she talked on that phone the whole ride. Not that I needed to talk to her during the ride, it's the point. Rude. It was a 1/2 hour drive and she was on that phone for at least 20 minutes. If the ride was any longer I may have jumped just to get away from it.

[Elisabeth]

I'm 100% with you on this, Danny. I now have an official cell phone policy on the syllabi for my classes - cell phones off BEFORE you even enter my classroom. Don't even try to text, check messages, or be on your cell phone if you are in my classroom before class start. Go into the hallway to take care of those things.

[Julie R.]

I'm with you on this, too, Danny. But tsk tsk about talking and driving--even using an earpiece can be distracting. Too many people I care about talk and drive.

[Frances]

Danny:

Your mention of Gare St. Lazare brings back memories and makes me wonder if I was ever there when you were working and we didn’t recognize each other. I didn’t eat there often because I couldn’t afford it at the time, not that it was that expensive but I had just started free lancing. But I did often sit at the bar after the dinner crowd had for the most part left. One of the bartenders was Mark Scanlon and he was one of my boyfriend’s closest friends, so on weeknights we often visited Mark. My warmest (literally) memories are of Mark using a lighter to warm a brandy snifter filled with something, cognac maybe, and sipping it on cold winter nights. When I think of how those glowing memories would be spoiled had there been cell phones, I realize how much we miss by interrupting the present moment to talk to someone else, somewhere else. Once you are disrupted by a phone call, it’s hard to remain fully in the present because you now have something else on your mind.

Frances

[Renee]

today i told this rude chick in a supermarket to "Get off your phone" while i almost ran into her with my cart because she wasn't paying attention. Well she got balistic and I thought she was going to get me into a chick fistfight right in the store! She stalked me later telling me "you're so lonley" (i'm lonley b/c i'm not talking on the cell ph?!) :) She called me a rude B#(@ and basically was running after me to continue fighting. I told her to leave me alone and that she was stupid. Then after getting my groceries, she was STILL out in the parking lot this time with a guy and i thought, "omg what a crazy headcase!". I told her she was obsessed and left thankfully w/o punching her in the nose. It's ridiculous the amount of torture these people do to you and how clueless they are that they are that rude. I have absolutely no patience for it anymore and probably will end up in a fistfight over it! Something needs to be done to stop the madness. (missing the days b/f cell phones)...

[Larz Blackman]

Cell phone abuse has almost made it unenjoyable to be in public places anymore. I love reading in cafes, but the jerks are ruining that. The other day I was in Starbucks, and a woman had her cell on speakerphone! These people need to be put in their place.

[Kurt]

Right on! I own a car wash, and cannot tell you how many people make me wait, menu in my hand, while they are on their phone, oblivous to the fact that there are people behind them, or that I might not want to be standing exposed outside when the temperature is below 40 or over 100 any more than is absolutely neccesary. When they do decide to roll down their windows they get impatient if I ask them what kind of wash they want, or to point out that their power antennae is up, or a back window down.

Once the money is collected, it is another chore to guide these distracted idiots into the preparation area without ruining their cars or hitting an employee.

It is all so very rude. I realize in their eyes I am a second class citizen, but what does it cost to be civil?