Ever have a feeling something?s missing? That it should be there, used to be there, but now is gone?
I noticed it several times in recent weeks, but I couldn?t put my finger on it.
There was something I wasn?t hearing anymore: cell phones ringing.
I spent a week in Vegas at a convention with 16,000 other photographers. Only once did I hear someone?s cell phone ring during a presentation. The speaker promptly brought him on stage in front of about 600 people and made him dance. For his effort and embarrassment, he got a gift certificate. No one else?s phone, including mine, audibly rang throughout the rest of the event, either during presentations or in the hallways.
For two days in Regina last week I sat in on the Insight Information Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Forum. This relatively small conference was populated by suits, all surgically attached to their BlackBerries. You could tell when a speech was getting a little dry, because half of the heads in the room would bob, glancing down at their BlackBerries. Every time the conference broke, the lobby was filled with oilmen checking their e-mail, or returning missed calls. Again, nary a ring to be heard.
For a while there I thought I was batting a thousand, but a few phones went off while I was taking a first aid course. However, I didn?t hear any phones ring while having lunch at a nearby restaurant.
After about 15 years of cell phones coming into general circulation, finally, people have learned etiquette. Specifically, they have all discovered their personal vibrators, and everyone is the happier for it.
No one wants to hear your phone ringing.
Remember when ring tones were all the rage? That was soooo 2005. I had my phone set to Imperial March, Darth Vader?s theme from The Empire Strikes Back. Everyone in the newsroom at the News-Optimist could identify me by my ring tone from a mile away. It would also go off constantly, much to some people?s justified annoyance.
I hardly ever hear ring tones anymore. I imagine not many people are making money off ring tones, either, these days.
The difficult thing with having your phone set to vibrate is that it has to be in your pants or shirt pocket for you to notice it. Belt holsters or purses for the ladies aren?t much use. I prefer to carry my phone in my large jacket pockets, but that does me no good with the vibrate function.
It also depends on the model. I?ve had phones with a vibrate function for years, but they were, for the most part, ineffectual. They were simply too weak. I paid a lot of money for a special battery for my ancient Motorola flip phone. It had a built in vibrator that would go off instead of the ringer. It didn?t work well as a vibrator. Over the years, I haven?t had much success with any other model, either.
BlackBerry, however, seems to have gotten it right, probably because a BlackBerry ringing in the boardroom makes you persona non grata in a hurry. I wonder if the iPhone?s is just as effective.
So now we are a much more civilized society, where conversations, performances and presentations can take place without the rude interruption of a ringing phone. And for this, we can all thank the little vibrators in our pockets.
In our phones, silly. I don?t know what you were thinking of.
? Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
