What Do You Think Today?

[Savor Dam]

doh.

deer, I am fairly certain (even with you back onshore...though neither in CO nor WA) that your post is unrelated to any on the prior page, if not further upthread.

[peter]

What is this - a daisy chain?

Does any person - EVER - think, when they hit their fifties, that "the world today is gotting better and Better!"

[Savor Dam]

No, but a light bulb came one about the time I reached that age; I realized that the only way I could get things to be better was to change those I could change...and let go of those not in that category.

What I changed made things considerably better for me and for some others.

[peter]

There is a quote "Never was a bigger mistake made than by the man who because he could only do a little, did nothing."

Your philosophy is bang on the mark Savor Dam - and one I would do well to apply to my own (mess of a) life

OK - what do we think of the recent story in the press about a woman who was using her phone at the supermarket checkout and suddenly noticed that the checkout lady was not scanning her items. On questioning why, the lady told her that it was Sainsbury's policy not to serve people while they engaged in conversations on there phones. The woman complained, was told that it was not the supermarkets policy, was given a £10 voucher and the checkout lady was disciplined. When the story hit the press the overwhelming public sympathy was with the checkout lady, feeling that she had been hard done by in the face of the womans rudeness. The reporter whose article I read then went on to say that he felt it was the height of rudeness to speak on a phone when engaged in a face to face situation with a person, especially if the person was a "lowly functionary" trying to serve you.

[Iolanthe]

Well done that supermarket employee! This is why I could never work in a shop again - I wouldn't be able to put up with the rudeness. When I worked in shops mobile phones hadn't been invented. It pains me to see people getting on the bus and buying a ticket whilst on the phone. It is the very height of rudeness.

[I'm Murrin]

Bah. There was no reason for the server to stop scanning just because the customer was on the phone. It's not like they would need to talk during that part. I don't care if you think a person is being rude, that's not an excuse to be a dick about it.

[Iolanthe]

While the cashier is scanning I'm usually filling bags and putting them in the trolley. If I was on the phone I couldn't do that. Can't understand why anyone would want to have a phone conversation while sorting out shopping at the till anyway. Should have your mind on the job in hand, not on a phone conversation.

[peter]

Have to say I'm with Iolanthe on this one BUT I also see where Murrin is coming from. I work in retail and have to put up with this very thing on a daily basis. It annoys me - but only slightly. Some of my collegues get much more fussed about it than me. I recognise it as just another facet of the changing world we inhabit. It wouldn't have been acceptable in our day, but neither would walking into a shop bare-chested/with no shoes on/in your pyjamas/using the f word three times in every sentence and a host of other things that make me cringe. I'm just getting old is all .

[I'm Murrin]

I'm just saying that if you care about politeness, then one person's rudeness shouldn't justify being rude back. In this case, the cashier was responding to perceived rudeness with her own rudeness.

[Iolanthe]

It wouldn't have been acceptable in our day.....

That says it all, Peter. We were just brought up differently. I have nothing against mobile phones, just the apparent misuse and nuisance of them. I don't want to know what the girl sitting in front of me on the bus did with her boyfriend last night; I don't want to hear the young man behind me boasting about what he got away with in court that morning. I suspect that most of the people of my age on the bus don't want to know either. I do worry when young women with children are glued to their mobiles in the bus station while their children run about all over the place. Mind you, I did ring my hairdresser once from a bus just to say that we were held up and I would be late

[Vraith]

It wouldn't have been acceptable in our day.....

That says it all, Peter. We were just brought up differently.

Well, I have to say two things:
1) Maybe you "ferr-i-nerrs" are [or at least used to be] more polite in general, but:
2) It's also hooey. Neither of you is older [at least not much] than me.
They didn't use the phones "back then," but people have ALWAYS chattered their butts off in lines, ignoring cashier, bank teller, people in line behind them, whoever.
I clearly remember loud, public, tedious, endless stream-of-bunions dialogue with whoever happened to be standing nearby, while searching through a handful of change for EXACTLY the RIGHT penny. [the grandkids like the wheat ones, can't spend those]...being distracted by an Indian Head nickel they forget about daily and rediscover, forcing them to orate at length on the War, the 20's, the depression, and listing every single item in the world that USED to only cost a nickel.
[[[and young folk did this crap, too...only the topics changed, not the nature]]].

[peter]

Mind you, I did ring my hairdresser once from a bus just to say that we were held up and I would be late

Haah! There you go Iolanthe - hoisted on your own patard! (;))

Well, it could be Vraith that we are always more sensetive to percieved rudeness when 'the slight' is in our direction - but the interesting thing here is that no-one has commented upon the writer's refering to shop assistants (like me) as 'lowly functionaries'; far more offensive in its own way than the use of a phone at a checkout. [Or at least it could be so if I were not aware(just for example) that in my role as a menial worker ( ) I quite possible do way more cumulative good to society in an average day than many who hold far more exhaulted positions]. The phone use thing is in some ways a double edged sword - while somebody is engaged on their phone I don't have to make any effort to be nice/nasty/interested/sympathetic or whatever - I can just do the thing I do as quickly as possible and get on with the next thing. The view of a shop assistant as a lowly functionary could (I say could, if I didn't find it so funny) hurt.

[Iolanthe]

I am minded of the first time I took my grandchildren to the pantomime. They had never been to a "live" performance before and, forgetting they weren't sitting in their living room watching telly, spoke in normal voices to choruses of "shhhhh". I think the same goes for mobile phones. People forget that they are not talking in the privacy of their own homes, or perhaps they just don't care. Yes, we used to chat in queues, still do , and in lots of public places but I don't remember people loudly announcing very personal details to all and sundry in the "old days" (sorry). And, usually, the cashier was a participant in the conversation.

OK, so I'm old fashioned. I was brought up in the post war years and teenaged in the 60s. I wore skirts up to my bum (when I'd turned the corner away from my parents' eyes the belt went on and the skirt went up), but we still had some idea of decorum and modesty. And we were taught to be polite and not ignore people. I wouldn't mind in the least if I overheard a conversation about bunions!

And another thing. You're talking about people of my parents' generation. They had more time. There were fewer people about, things happened at a more leisurely pace, conversation was all part and parcel of the daily routine. We should respect our elders, and their ways. Everyone seems so impatient these days.

Edited because Peter's post arrived while I was writing mine. I think it's Petard, Peter. I've been a "lowly functionary" (shop assistant) too. Knitted dresses at C&A, biscuits in Woolworths (when they were in big tins and had to be weighed out). And once I stood in for the regular accompanist to the Lincoln Amateurs when they were doing Patience for four weeks, during which I was always referred to as "the pianist" by the director. I thought that very rude too, but then he was a London producer (apparently). I did actually notice it but forgot to comment being waylaid by mobile phones.

[Savor Dam]

I believe Vraith may have hit upon a key distinction here without having realized he'd done so.

They didn't use the phones "back then," but people have ALWAYS chattered their butts off in lines, ignoring cashier, bank teller, people in line behind them, whoever.
I clearly remember loud, public, tedious, endless stream-of-bunions dialogue with whoever happened to be standing nearby...

Is there not a fundamental difference in the degree of rudeness between having a conversation with other persons present while doing a transaction versus having a phone conversation (or text exchange) with someone who is not even there while facing a clerk trying to finish your order and move to the next patron?

[Iolanthe]

Yes, SD, there is a big difference. Anyone can join in with a conversation, but if you are talking to someone who is at the other end of the phone you are in your own little world which excludes everyone around you.

[I'm Murrin]

Some would consider it rude for someone to insert themselves into a conversation they were having in public, too.

And no. Long distance communication is an everyday thing, now, just as normal as talking face to face.

If you're talking to the person next to you and still ignoring the cashier, how would it be any different?

[Iolanthe]

Some would consider it rude for someone to insert themselves into a conversation they were having in public, too.

And no. Long distance communication is an everyday thing, now, just as normal as talking face to face.

If you're talking to the person next to you and still ignoring the cashier, how would it be any different?

Firstly, conversations are funny things. I do a lot of standing around at bus-stops. Often several people converge, and we all chat to each other, bringing in new people who turn up whether we know them or not. It seems impolite to leave them standing on their own while we are all merrily chatting. If a couple of young people turn up, they will not join in, but stand on their own at a distance and have their own conversation which of course we wouldn't dream of butting in to. In that situation it is quite easy to know who wants to join in and who doesn't. It's mostly people of my own age, and older, who are in the first group. A supermarket queue is quite different. First the trolley is between you and the next person in the queue, then I am concentrating on packing while C puts the stuff in the trolley, and the cashier makes polite conversation.

To take your third situation, if you are on the phone to someone, everyone else in the queue, and the cashier, are excluded from contact with you. You are not concentrating on what you are doing, not paying attention to what is around you. You make your own little space and the rest of us are outside. Two people talking in a queue is quite different, and I doubt that the cashier minds this at all. It seems to me that it would be quite impossible to exclude the cashier from any conversation going on round her till. Apart from that, it's much more interesting to listen to a conversation than it is to hear half a phone call.

And your second point. Long distance communication has been around for a long time. It used to be done in private - even in a call box you have some degree of privacy. The mobile phone is extremely useful. I can ring C when I need fetching. My daughter texts me to say when she expects to arrive. I used it at the weekend of my college reunion so that I would know where my old room-mate could be found when we arrived. But I personally do not use my mobile for conversations. I don't give my number to anyone except close family and friends, and my bank as they text me a special number when I do a particular transcaction on the internet. I realise that to younger people and business persons it is an important part of their lives, but I myself do not wish to be communicated with when I am out unless there is an emergency. There is a time and place for everything, and as far as I am concerned private conversations are conducted from home, via email or the landline. My mobile is "pay as you go" and usually put a tenner into it about twice a year.

What I do object to is being put in the position where I am forced to listen to an explicit sexual conversation going on in the seat in front of me on the bus. What should I do? Move seats? Not possible on a crowded bus. Do these youngsters realise that everyone else can hear what they are saying? Do they really need to do this in such a public place? If so, why? That is what I don't understand. And what is so important about a conversation that it has to take place when the person on the phone should be interacting with another human being? If the call is that important it should take place somewhere quiet away from where there are lots of other people who will be able to hear the conversation.

Gosh, what a long mail. This whole argument reminds me of when I was about 17 and insisted on staying up late to watch Rowan & Martin's Laugh In. My parents thought it quite disgusting that I laughed my head off at an old woman in a hairnet sitting on a bench next to an old man who she was bashing with her handbag. Say goodnight Dick. Goodnight Dick! Remember that one Vraith? And I am not being rude!!

[Savor Dam]

Verrrrry interrrresting, Iolanthe. I take it you would nominate these public users of mobile phones for a Flying Fickle Finger of Fate award.

You bet your sweet bippy!

[Iolanthe]

Ah yes, but wasn't it "Verrrrry interrrresting, but stoopid"? Take it away, D..... (golf club at the ready).

Oh dear, we are wallowing, aren't we. I'd forgotten all about the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate though. Very appropriate.

[StevieG]

There is one situation when I find the use of mobile phones annoying and/or offensive. It's when you have organised a work-related meeting, and someone in the meeting is looking on their phone. Alternatively, they receive a phone call during the meeting, and take it without excusing themselves. That is a pet hate of mine, and the height of rudeness in my opinion.