We've got your number

November 6, 2000
Web posted at: 12:19 p.m. EST (1719 GMT)

With Ann Humphries, ETICON

(CNN) -- "Good morning. I want to thank everybody for getting to this meeting on such short notice and particularly on a Friday when we're all trying …. Wait a minute. Sorry, I forgot to forward my calls …"

"No, hang on, CJ, that's my phone, not yours."

"Nope, it's mine. Sorry everybody, I thought I'd -- well, no, it's not mine, after all. Gloria, is that your purse ringing again?"

"No, no, it's mine, got it. It's my daughter, so sorry."

"Yours? With that ring? Now wait a minute, Tom, that's my distinctive ring."

"No it's not, it's mine, Al. We all decided months ago on who was using which ring -- honey, hang on, one of my co-workers is making a lot of noise."

"I'm making noise? You're the one yelling into your Nextel like it's a tin can on a string, Tom."

Let's be kind and step on out of the conference room here. You know where this scene is headed. It's another Friday fracas precipitated by the jangle of wireless phone calls pour into the shared work space.

QUICK VOTE Do colleagues bother you with bad cell-phone usage in your work? Nah, I understand, grab the phone. A call's a call, you have to take it. I'm on hold about this one. Cell phones are irritating but an important aid in business. I'm hanging up. Ninety-nine percent of the cell-calling done at work is personal, showy and rude. View Results     ONE SUGGESTION A CNN.com/career reader has e-mailed us the following suggested announcement on a business-meeting agenda -- as a way of keeping cell-phone racket to a minimum: "Dinner this evening will be at 7 p.m., courtesy of the owner of the first cell phone to make an audible interruption in this meeting. Please adjust your equipment accordingly."

Some of those calls, of course, are business-related. Some are your kid on the playground. (Her father just had to give her that lima-bean-colored phone to match her hair, didn't he?)

Originally the problem was the scare. A wireless phone going off in mid-meeting was startling. Hearts in throats. The calm of a quiet room shattered by an incoming call. But at least in the early days of cell-phone use, most people still had the grace to dive out of the room with a call. A mad scramble for the door, apologies all around, mortification for days.

Today, most of us are a lot more blasé about it. We're not so freaked when one goes off and far less likely to apologize -- or expect an apology -- when a call interrupts business. But should we be? Aren't we giving up too much to this gadget?

CNN: Using her cell number, we were able to interrupt ETICON founder and president Ann Humphries at a pivotal moment in one of her business-etiquette seminars. "Put your audience on hold, Ann," we said, "and tell us how to handle cell phones as a career convenience, not a blunt instrument of workday rudeness."

Ann Humphries: Well, I've had to get over something about cell phones -- I've had to admit that they really make a lot of sense.

I was originally in a snit because you'd hear them in grocery stores, video stores, on a subway, at the football game. I realized that that's all fine. It's in enclosed spaces they're a problem. When traveling, they can be very intrusive, you're seated very close together. At a restaurant -- for business or pleasure -- they can really be a problem.

And particularly in business, you need to realize that there can be a tad of arrogance to taking a call in mid-meeting or on the way to one with co-workers. As with anything you do in business, being discreet is especially important with cell phones.

That means turning them off during meetings unless there's a critical call you just have to listen out for. If your phone or pager has a vibration setting instead of a ring, use it. Get your distinctive ring set up so that at least in most settings you'll know immediately if it's yours.

When you do have to take a call -- especially when you're among your working colleagues -- remember to keep your voice down. Have you noticed how many people seem to think everyone wants to hear their end of a long conversation? And if it's a personal call, this is so important. Your private affairs just aren't something anyone else should have to hear. You can't expect to speak as freely when you're out and about with co-workers as you might when you're in your office or at your desk.

If you have a colleague who repeatedly takes cell calls in meetings and talks too much or too loudly around the workplace, you're perfectly within your right to say, "Do you mind handling that in another room?" Or try saying, "Will this be a long call?" I tend to get more firm and more direct, as necessary.

What you're up against is the fact that a lot of people don't seem to realize that taking a call in everybody else's space and on everybody else's time is an imposition. That's why you start to see notices on meeting agendas, in church bulletins, theater playbills, restaurant menus -- "Turn off your cell phone, please."

CALLING ALL CAREERISTS
	Hello? Maybe we have a bad connection, you're breaking up. Oh, that's better. And you can hear me, right? OK. Look, just want to say we'd like to hear from you about issues in career etiquette you'd like to see addressed here in "Corporate Class." We invite you to use our handy submission form. And ... well, you know ... no phone calls, please.

Now, if you have to make a call, yourself, that's the moment to really do the right thing. You'll not only be professional about it, you'll also set an example for others. You excuse yourself. If you can leave the immediate area -- say, a conference room -- explain briefly and step out. If you can't leave and it's important you make the call, ask your colleagues if they mind.

The bottom line is restraint and discretion. Your cell phone is a business tool -- don't show off with it, don't bother others with it. Do what's needed and smart.

Ann Humphries, founder and president of ETICON, Inc. and a Certified Professional Consultant to Management, includes several Fortune 500 companies among her clients. She's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Money, and on CNN, CBS and Lifetime TV. You can contact her at www.eticon.com.

ETICON.com

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