Check Your Blackberries

Get your head out of the refrigerator! I'm talking about the "Smart" phones that make people do dumb things. Here are just a few examples:

1. People checking their blackberries and texting while driving. I cringe every time I see a car swerve and I notice the driver has their head down. Duh...do you really need a law saying this should be illegal? If you think it's safe to drive while texting, then try doing it in your own driveway with your other car parked close by.

2. Checking e-mails in the middle of an important meeting. Or maybe the meeting isn't that important to you. Earlier this week I blogged about three young people who were gaming together at lunch. I received quite a reaction to this blog posting. Seems like I hit a nerve. People are telling me they are sick and tired of how rude people are with their smart phones. Comments came from both young people as well as mature people regarding situations where the message coming across on the phone was clearly more important than the message they were trying to deliver in person.

Here is what I suggest the next time this happens. Get up in the middle of the meeting and go outside and text message this person. I bet you will be able to complete most of your conversation before this person realizes you are no longer in the room. Or, you can turnoff your own Blackberry or smart phone and place it on the table for the person to see. With a little luck, they may follow suit. After all, who doesn't like to show off their cool phone?

3. Making clerks wait (and the rest of us) while you finish messaging someone. If you are not ready to complete your transaction then for goodness sake, get off the line. Some of us are actually on tight schedules.

So before you take that darn phone out again, think twice. For years you've survived without getting messages instantaneously. Surely you can wait until you are in a safe private place to check your messages.