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Stop Playing with Yourself

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by dr dij

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http://blogs.cio.com/node/561
Author: Cranky Old Guy

This was so funny I had to post a link.
About people who, during meetings, bury their heads and stare at hidden laptop blackberries, IMing, emailing, etc.

He suggests the people get a room to share with their Blackberries. Or as my GF (ok now Fiancee) would say, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?"

Are there anyone out there who
does this?
is bothered by it?

7 replies

by shellbot

happens a lot in my place, everyone plays with thier phones/BB's..drives me nuts!!

However, I am myself guilty of "doodling" while in meetings. But at least i try and cover it up by taking notes as i do so :)

by steffi28

Someone who shouts down there phone on the bus. That drives me crazy. I suppose I might have a different outlook if I was the one conducting the meetings, and like you Shell Im a doodler lol.

by shellbot

last year i was holding training sessions for some new reporting funtionality in our application and there was one guy who was obviously doing the blackberry thing.
I was fuming, after about 45 minutes i actually stopped talking, and sat down. Everyone looked around at each other (no one wanted to be the first to say anything), i must have sat silent for about 3-4 minutes, when he finally looks up. Then i said, "oh sorry, i just thought that with all the important business you are conducting there, that maybe my talking was distracting you."
He had the good grace to turn a bit pink for few seconds, so i continued on with the presentation..untill his phone rang and he answered it and proceeded to talk.

I asked him to take his phone call outside and snitched on him to his manager later on that week.

I'm so mean :)

by gadgetgirl

Needless to say, I thought all my birthdays had come at once with the title of that post! :p

Imagine the scene: Local government guidelines state housekeeping is done at the beginning of all meetings; where the loos are, where to go if the fire alarms goes off, and they've added in switching off all mobiles, blackberries, etc.

At a countywide meeting to restructure DR planning, all the DR and BC specialists (myself included) and anyone with anything to do with resilience and recovery were summoned to attend.

Housekeeping as usual at the beginning of the session, as well as the request to switch off all mobiles etc.......

Gasps of astonishment from the attendees; every one of us there were DR contacts!

Sudden dawning of light from chairman: "oh...... you can't, can you?!"

We all switched phones etc. to silent, bb's etc were put away. That was the most uninterrupted, professional, profitable meeting I've been part of in the last six years....

GG

by jamesrl

If you all have to be available all the time, you've not gone deep enough in DR planning.

I learned long ago that I should never let any one individual be indispensible. People take vacations, get sick, get hit by buses, or quit.

Seems to me your meeting was the perfect time to see how your backup contacts could handle things.

My department provides emergency support for things like downed systems at client sites. We have a 7/24 pager that rotates between 3 people. But just in case no one answers the phone, all the decision makers and the telephone support staff also have home phone numbers and cell numbers for all three staff.

If I make myself indispensible I can never be promoted, take vacations or be sick.

James

by faradhi

I love doing that to side conversations.

What really pisses me off is when they are fiddling with what ever device is more important and then will look up, obviously confused as to where you are in the content and then proceed to ask a question covered five minutes ago. ARRRRGGGHHH!!

Usually at that point, I will tell them that they will have to catch up after class. Wouldn't you know it, I get a support call right after class. (Then talk to their manager so that they have to attend the class again.) >:)

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