Just Another Jerk With A Cell Phone

Respect: An attitude of consideration or high regard.

I am constitutionally incapable of ignoring people who are fucking around with their cell phones during the course of a meeting.  To me it's the equivalent of saying: "Hey, thanks for sharing but I have to check my Facebook feed."  I try to imagine how I would feel if I was at my first meeting, sweating blood, trying to get up the courage to talk about topics that have been tormenting me for years, only to look around the room and see ten people fiddling with their phones.  I think I would have been knocked off kilter, and I have a tremendously stable kilter.  Now, I realize that this kind of behavior is much more prevalent today than in my time but it still seems . . . well . . . rude.

I will also say that the people who don't have the courtesy to listen when someone else is talking generally have shit programs.  These are people who can't take 45 minutes to pay attention to what someone else is saying.  I know we're selfish and self-centered but jesus christ, are you kidding me?  It's like the jerks I run into from time to time who can't put down their phone while they're in line at a coffee shop.  I can hear the conversations these jerks are having and, trust me, they're not important at all.  I always apologize for these people when I'm checking out, commenting that it must be hard being that important or some such guff.

I come back to the old parable of the wine-skins at the wedding.  In this tale the host of a wedding asks only that each guest bring a jug of house wine with which to fill a large container so that everyone has something to drink.  The clever drunk, always eager to drink for free, surreptitiously slips in a jug of tap water, figuring it'll go unnoticed in such a large quantity of wine.  When the host draws the first goblet he ends up with a glass of tap water.  For, you see, all of the guests thought they could get away with something.  

What if everyone simultaneously spontaneously looked at their cell phones at the same time when someone new decided to share?  

It matters how I behave.