Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Hold That Call -- Please

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 01:51:39 -0500

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washingtonpost.com

Hold That Call -- Please

Cell-Phone Interruptions May Be Building a Mandate for Office Rules

By Amy Joyce

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, December 8, 2002; Page H06

We're told at the beginning of movies to remember to turn off our cell phones. Glance around and you'll see half the audience laugh or gasp, grab their little gadgets and create a "Hallelujah!" chorus of beeps as they turn their phones off.

Same with concerts, plays and many other public events. Just about all of us have embarrassing stories about that time when, at the climax of the flick at the Indonesian film festival or something, the phone rang, and in the midst of all the glares, we fumbled through jacket pockets, purse, boyfriend's pockets and our own lap until we finally found it to turn off.

It still makes me giggle when I hear one cell phone ring and see a handful of people jump up to see if it is theirs. I, myself, have often held purse to ear to make sure it's not mine chirping away. But there is a little issue that comes with this.

Cell phones in the office. Does your cubeland come with its own chorus of ear-piercing electronic symphonies (or at this time of year, Christmas carols) as co-workers get calls to remind them to bring home a pie, or are tracked down by a client who couldn't reach them at their desk?

It's old news that the phones can play pop songs when they ring, or have a particular ring for a particular caller (a former colleague's phone played Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, otherwise known as the Dracula theme song, whenever his ex-wife called). But this is what makes cell phones ringing a bit different from desk phones ringing. Those boring phones, tied to the desk, ring in a familiar, boring manner. It's hard to tell one from the other, and it all turns into white noise.

And of course, there are always those moments when someone has stepped away and left a cell phone to fend for itself, and it screams a loud ring, looking for its owner. This can be a bit, well, disruptive.

Is there an etiquette for these things? Some, like the restaurants that disallow any cell-phone use indoors, would say yes.

One area boss, who will remain unnamed, has unofficially banned the use of cell phones in the office, as one new worker found out.

This employee called her boyfriend to say hello during a slow moment. She used her cell phone for that purpose because it was a long-distance call and she didn't want to charge the company for her personal calls. But her co-workers quickly told her to hide that cell, the boss hates the things.

She's still not sure if it is the incessant ringing, or perhaps the loud voice we often use when there is a bad connection, that makes her boss glare when someone pulls out a cell phone. But she does note that he uses one himself. He's all the way down a hall, or in another office, and she can hear it ring. Perhaps that's because no one else uses cell phones (especially not in ring function), which means the office is quite quiet.

Telling a co-worker to cut the ringer is one thing. Telling a boss isn't so easy.

"My boss has his cell phone set to a multi-note ring," explained one worker in last week's Life at Work Live discussion. "Each ring is long enough that there's very little pause between one ring and the next. He has a tendency to leave his phone turned on at his desk while he attends meetings. One day it went off while the team was gathering at his desk for a meeting. I jokingly said, 'Kill it! Kill it!' "

The boss laughed, the chatter reported, but nothing changed.

This poor worker, as much as she hates the sound of the cell phone, didn't feel right asking the boss to turn off the ringer. So she made a joke. Apparently not clearly enough, however, because the boss's cell phone is still on the annoying ring.

There are, of course, ways to prevent such irritation, points out Verizon spokesman John Johnson. In fact, at his workplace, where of course everyone has a cell phone, "we have kind of developed our own etiquette for turning phones to vibrate when in meetings."

He also pointed out that many new phones have caller identification or text messaging. (Perhaps a holiday present for that boss with the multi-note ring.)

There is no reason to have a ringer turned on, according to Carol Page, founder of Cellmanners.com and a consultant who creates workplace policies related to cell-phone use. "Ringers are a big problem because they startle people. You can be perfectly involved in something, then that ringer goes off," she said. And then, reflecting the way many people would react: "And you're like, grrrr."

It brings up many other issues, such as when to answer the phone call, how loud you talk on it and how to deal with calls when sitting in a meeting.

That employee whose boss has pretty much banned cell phones comes from a start-up, where all of her co-workers and bosses were constantly on theirs.

"No joke, you'd walk down the hall and every person was on their cell phones." Sound familiar?

But this employee said she didn't mind it so much. "We'd get irritated, but knew if someone was on the phone, it was to do work."

Which was much appreciated, as the company is one of many barely hanging on.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company