Mobile professional etiquette
As mobile users continue to grow, the etiquette for using mobile devices continues to shift. Although people use their mobile phones everywhere and for all kinds of purposes, most consider this to be enough of an excuse not to pay attention to the people around them. Unfortunately, this becomes part of their first impression. Now, combine that with poor interaction skills even with those they text and message, and it’s a personal branding nightmare before you’ve even said hello!
Don’t make mistakes with your cell phone? People around you may think otherwise. Here are some professional mobile etiquette tips that will at least help you avoid making someone feel offended or uncomfortable when interacting with your cell phone.
1. Driving and using your mobile phone
Although there are laws regulating the use of cell phones while driving, some people still feel compelled to break the law and use their cell phones while driving. Now, if only they’d settle for using hands-free mode. But time and time again, there continue to be people who become a road hazard while answering a call or even sending a text message while driving.
How professional are you when you drift into someone else’s lane? Or when you’re too engrossed in your conversation to remember that green means go? Nothing is ruder or less professional than a driver who doesn’t seem to care about other drivers on the road, pedestrians or even their passengers. It just doesn’t.
2. Using your cell phone while you are with someone in person
So, you’re having a nice conversation with a friend, colleague, or even a date, and then the phone rings and you excuse yourself for answering, and you end up talking for a while with the person who called.
The very act of answering the phone says a lot that “maybe there’s something more interesting or important than you” on the other line!
3. Have your phone ring in a place that should be quiet
Don’t you find it annoying when you are in a movie theater and you are engrossed in the plot of a movie when suddenly some random person’s phone rings and spoils the experience? Indeed, a ringing telephone in a movie theater, library, church, meeting, and many other places represents the height of bad manners.
Please just silence your cell phone or vibrate so the rest of the world can watch and listen to what’s going on in peace. (And make sure you can find your phone. Sure, it’s not distracting that your phone is ringing, your babbling excuses that you “could never find that thing” and that you “were” going to turn it off. Oh , please!)
4. Talk too loudly when using your cell phone
I often wonder when someone does this – are they really on the phone or are they so hungry for attention that they create this huge distraction for us? First impressions last.
5. Exposure to too much information while talking on the phone in public
Some people seem to have a habit of doing this. They end up talking for a long time using their cell phone, and the people around them can hear everything from the playful kiss sounds they exchange with their partner to their talk about bowel movements and constipation.
There’s a reason private conversations are called “private,” and that’s because no one else really wants to hear you cry dramatically while talking on your cell phone. So when you get a personal call in a public place, just tell the other person you’ll call them right away, or find a quiet, relatively private place to talk.
6. Using annoying and disturbing ringtones
I’m all for personal preference and I’m also all for not putting obstacles in your own way. Therefore, during working hours, vibration seems to be the safest choice.
When you think about it, mobile professional etiquette isn’t rocket science. It’s actually very simple – you’re basically just using common sense. Yet how unusual is that?
Remember, you never know who someone is; who will come; or whom they affect. Leave them with a first impression that deserves a second look, a meeting, introduction to contacts or an interview.
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