Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The phone is ringing, go get it now!

I was reading an article today and it talked about how people would put aside whatever they doing to answer a phone call and it was so interesting, so I decide to write something about it.

Telephone is perhaps one of the greatest inventions in the human history. It let people from across the globe to talk to each other almost instantly. Since some time after it is invented, however, for some reason people get into a way to think that whenever a phone starts ringing, s/he has to answer it as soon as possible, as long as their hands are free (Oh well, we got handset now but you still need to use your hand to turn the handset on, I guess?)

Try to think about it, among all the tools that facilitate communications, including your vocal cords, mail, phone, fax, email and instant messenger, phone is given as much attention as a real person who stands in front of you. Oh, actually, that is not right. Phone quite often has a higher priority than a real person. I have had meetings with my previous boss that were interrupted every five minutes since he had to pick up phone calls. When he was talking on the phone, I had to wait and do nothing there but at the same time I dared not to leave since I was not dismissed yet. And finally when he finished the call, he already forgot where we were and I had to explain to him again. And the damn phone rang again. Basically, we are always ignoring a person because of another person for no good reason. Oh there is a reason: the phone is so annoying that you want it to stop ringing even one more second. This is kind of stupid, isn't it?


When I think about it now, I understand why I got so pissed off when my friend didn't answer my phone call. We are all so used to getting instant attention when we call somebody because phone call is so spoiled to receive attention right away since don't know how long ago. Ironically, though we expect people to answer our phone call immediately, we also get pissed if your friend keeps talking on the phone and ignore us. Not to mention being out on a date with a girl, even if a guy friend keeps talking on the phone when we are having lunch or something, I will get pretty upset about it. I would think "Dammit, if you like talking to some other person more than me, go home and talk all night long and don't waste my time."

Actually, you don't really do it in front of your boss, do you? "Hey I am having a meeting with my boss now I will call you back." You would say that in 3 seconds and hang up. Why would you think that you boss deserves more respect than your friends? "He is the one who pays me you dumbass." Yeah, I almost forget about that.

Anyways, next time you are meeting your friend and your cell phone starts ringing with that cutie ring tone, please

• answer the phone call and politely tell the caller that you are with you friends and you will call them back later on (and remember that), or

• if it is a call from your crush and you definitely have to talk to him/her for more than 10 minutes, dismiss you friend. Life is short!

2 comments:

  1. one more bad thing about using cell phone:

    have you read this news?
    講手機4小時精子減四成

    http://hk.news.yahoo.com/061024/12/1v6tl.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow I can't imagine that cell phone would cause that harm. One good reason to talk less on the cell phone if it is true :)

    ReplyDelete

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