Stop Polluting Our Air

Several posts ago, I talked about how rude I thought it was to speak a foreign language in public areas of America if you’re a resident of this great land. Today, I want to write about another pet peeve of mine.

Picture it: you’re sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, waiting to be seen. You arrive roughly thirty minutes early, only to sit and wait for two hours longer than your scheduled appointment, because the doctor is behind. I don’t mind waiting for my ortho because he is the most respected and sought after Otho in the greater Cincinnati area.

Naturally, since you have to wait, all the other people in the room are going to be seen late as well. The waiting room is quite large and from across the room you hear, among the hushed whispers of people conversing and pages of magazines being rustled, a very loud, obnoxious ring tone of the old Batman TV show theme song. The person whose phone is ringing is startled and she hurriedly rushes to answer the phone. Her conversation is loud, but it is short.

You’re only slightly annoyed, but you are gracious enough to think that maybe she just forgot to put her phone on vibrate. A couple minutes later, the same loud ring tone comes to life. The owner answers, but this time her call is not so short. She doesn't’t try to speak in the same whispered tones as everyone else in the room, choosing instead to speak to the caller at a volume that even you, who is sitting all the way across the room considers to be loud and obnoxious.

The call ends. You settle back into the magazine that you’re thumbing through and pretty soon you here the same person speaking. You look up only to see that, this time, she is the caller. She carries a twenty minute phone conversation with someone she knows about all the cars she’s owned and which ones were good and not so good. She has this conversation at the same loud, obnoxious volume as the previous two calls. Every one in the entire office, including the receptionist, peers at her to express their annoyance, but she remains oblivious.

Cell phone ringers usually do not bother me. Most people are considerate enough to lower the volume or even place it on vibrate. Most people are also receptive to their environment enough either to excuse themselves from the room or to speak in a hushed voice. I find it so rude, inconsiderate, and unmannered when people are loud in a quiet environment or when they hold a conversation with someone while another person is speaking.

Why can’t they make a cell phone with technology that can measure the ambient noise and adjust the ringer automatically? The louder the ambient noise, the louder the ringer. Conversely, the quieter the ambient noise, the quieter the ringer.

I am utterly amazed sometimes at how disrespectful and rude the people around me are. Maybe it just seems like a bigger problem, because consumer technology is so young. Maybe we should require a person to take cell phone parenting classes before we allow them to purchase the device…a kind of ‘rules of the road’ dummies guide to proper use and etiquette. I am totally kidding about that, but come on people; consider the people around you when you’re in a public. Stop polluting our air.