Cell Phone Intrusion

[lizziee]

In Today's New York Times under Food Stuff by Florence Fabricant, there is this short item:

"Take Pity on the Poor Risotto

Noted, as "an environmental advisory," on the menu at Harry Cipriani, 781 Fifth Avenue (59th Street): "The use of cellular phones interferes with preparation of risotto."

If a restaurant, particularly a fine dining one, does not have a policy about cell phones or the GM is loathe to stop the cell phone use, what do you do? If one of the options you use is to ask the cell phone user to stop and they refuse, what then?

[LaNiña]

I've become very good at the blatant sudden turn and give an evil stare move.

[Fat Guy]

If somebody is speaking into a cell phone at a normal conversational volume level, as would be used for communication with the other people at the table, I submit it's none of your business. If the person gets loud -- some people do have a tendency to yell into their cellular phones -- and management will not intercede then it is appropriate to ask the person to keep his or her voice down.

[=Mark]

During one particularly egregious instance of this happening, in a voice loud enough to match that of the cellphone user, I joined in on the conversation. Any questions he asked, I answered in as ridiculoius manner as I could muster ("Yes, I'm also in a restaurant blathering loudly. Are you annoying people too?")

I don't know whether the other patrons appreciated the admittedly childish ruse, but I felt a perverse amusement when recieving "the blatant sudden turn and give an evil stare move." from Mr Loud Blather.

[lizziee]

Steve,

It is not so much the actual cell phone usage as the constant ringing of the phone. I don't mind if someone has a vibrating ring, but when every 5 minutes you hear the ringing of a phone in an expensive high-end restaurant, it is very annoying.

[Fat Guy]

I think it's also appropriate to ask someone to please switch the phone to vibrate or silent mode.

[tommy]

I've become very good at the blatant sudden turn and give an evil stare move.

and that's just if you're dressed in such a way that is contributing to the decline as civilization as we know it.

[lizziee]

I think it's also appropriate to ask someone to please switch the phone to vibrate or silent mode.

and if they tell you in the best Anglo-Saxon tradition to mind your own business?

[tommy]

I think it's also appropriate to ask someone to please switch the phone to vibrate or silent mode.

and if they tell you in the best Anglo-Saxon tradition to mind your own business?

i suppose if i were in that situation i'd probably go ahead and mind my own fucking business.

people will be people. what's the answer?

[Fat Guy]

I think it's also appropriate to ask someone to please switch the phone to vibrate or silent mode.

and if they tell you in the best Anglo-Saxon tradition to mind your own business?

You say it is your business because you're a paying customer and the noise is intrusive.

[LaNiña]

Yes, I meant the ringing, not the talking, as long as it's not screaming. I've never asked anyone to switch to vibrate mode - good idea.

[Simon Majumdar]

I've become very good at the blatant sudden turn and give an evil stare move.

Yes but that has nothing to do with mobile phones or eating out

[Suzanne F]

Isn't this a parallel situation to screaming children running wild? -- except in this case it's the children who are the paying customers. It is a situation for the management to be told of, complained to about, for it is MANAGEMENT's responsibility to maintain an hospitable ambience. Of course, threats to never come in again tend to not carry much weight, except from regulars.

[Fat Guy]

You appeal to management first, and when you present yourself to management you make the point that you shouldn't be put in the position where you have to make the complaint directly to another customer but you will do so if management doesn't act. At that point, if management fails to perform its duty, you should step in and make a polite appeal directly to the offender. Later, you should complain bitterly to management about its abdication of responsibility. In the case of noisy children, of course, the offender is the parent who refuses to provide adequate supervision. This is all of course contextual. If you go to Chuck E. Cheese's you should not view noisy children as an offense. If you dine at a sidewalk cafe on Columbus Avenue you should not be surprised to hear cell phones ringing. But if people clearly breach society's rules of etiquette and it affects you directly and you do nothing about it, that's your decision to live with it. Sometimes that's necessary, such as when a friend invites you over and another guest is rude to you -- you don't want to embarrass your friend with a confrontation. But with strangers in a restaurant there's no reason not to speak up. You will feel much better in the end. And a lot of times, if you ask politely and present yourself in a non-threatening and reasonable manner your request will be accommodated. For example, I was at a concert and I was blocking the view of the guy behind me. Now, that's because he was sitting and I was standing. Standing was clearly the normal expected behavior at this sort of concert, because 99% of the audience was doing so. But this guy wanted to sit. Fine. If he had said, "Excuse me, sir, could I trouble you to shift a little to the left or right? I've chosen to sit and would like as clear a view as possible." I would have been sure to accommodate him within the limits of my physical abilities. If he had said it with a British accent I'd have been extra helpful. But he didn't say that. He said, in his New Jersey accent, "Sit the fuck down asshole." So of course I blocked his view extra for the rest of the evening.

[Ron Johnson]

He said, in his New Jersey accent, "Sit the fuck down asshole."

I had a similar experience once, and I had consumed a few cocktails, so I did sit down . . . in his lap.

[glenn]

So of course I blocked his view extra for the rest of the evening.

I guess when you're the FAT GUY, you can do that sort of thing. I once shushed someone at the movie theater and almost got my head blown off.

[Gavin Jones]

Out of interest what did get blown off?

[glenn]

just my ego. being the chicken shit I am, I was the one that shushed (and moved).

[Fat Guy]

Yes, well, you do want to run the usual reality checks to make certain you're not about to get into a confrontation with an obvious mobster or whatever.

[Lady T]

To digress slightly, on reactions to noisy disruptions in public:

One of the most notable deployments I've ever seen of the 'sudden turn and evil stare' move came during a recording made live in concert at Symphony Center in Chicago. As always happens on these occasions, an official came out to the apron of the stage to ask that cell phones and pagers be turned off and coughing smothered/subdued/stopped with cough drops before the music started. As always seems to happen, a patron in the audience, obviously suffering from a winter cold, could not stop coughing, and of course, cut loose with what sounded like an entire pneumonia ward in pulmonary crisis during a soft passage (The work in question was the Debussy 'Trois Nocturnes'.). The 'take', of course, was ruined. The conductor stopped conducting, turned 180 degrees, and glared. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in all its formal-ties-and-tails splendor, turned and glared. And behind the Orchestra, a forty-voice women's contingent from the Chicago Symphony Chorus looked up and skewered the patron, in commendable unison, with an 80-eye evil glare of its own. The poor patron scrabbled in her purse for the cough drop she'd needed to deploy at the start of the piece, while the silence lengthened and deepened, and her fellow patrons joined in the glaring (less for the noise than the delay). Finally, the conductor said: "Ve start again," and restarted the music from the beginning. We did eventually make it through the performance -- and, as one might guess, the patron was not in her seat after intermission.

Now there are obvious differences here: this was a 2,574-seat concert hall and not a restaurant. The patron was ill, not obliviously carrying on a loud personal or professional conversation in public. The hack attack and its ensuing embarrassment undoubtedly ruined the patron's experience as much as everyone else's. It might have been some sort of tribute to her dedication to classical music, or maybe a mighty determination to get her considerable ticket money's worth, that she showed up even though she was sick. Here's the parellel, though: why couldn't she -- and can't so many people -- take just the one more mental step necessary to ensure that the evening would be enjoyable for all? Most of the people who offend in this way are NOT brain-dead boors, but sensible decent folks. It takes so stinkin' little time or thought to take a dose of cough medicine, or to turn off a cell phone. What is the nature of this blind spot?

Discuss?

[tommy]

Here's the parellel, though: why couldn't she -- and can't so many people -- take just the one more mental step necessary to ensure that the evening would be enjoyable for all?  Most of the people who offend in this way are NOT brain-dead boors, but sensible decent folks.  It takes so stinkin' little time or thought to take a dose of cough medicine, or to turn off a cell phone.  What is the nature of this blind spot?  

Discuss?

i'm not buying this parallel as i've never heard of a cough drop that works 100% of the time. to assume this person was remiss in her social responsibility because she didn't take a cough drop when she should have seems presumptuous.

i've been in situations with my cell phone when i've forgot to turn it off when it might have been appropriate. the nature is: sometimes you just forget. being human, clearly, is the human race's biggest flaw.

edit: races' ??

[Stone]

I haven't read this whole thread, so maybe someone else suggested this -- but what about throwing a piece of bread or a pat of butter at the cell phone user? It's simple and it gets the point across.

[bavila]

I haven't read this whole thread, so maybe someone else suggested this -- but what about throwing a piece of bread or a pat of butter at the cell phone user?  It's simple and it gets the point across.

←

An article in today's Annapolis Capital newspaper discusses several food establishments in town banning cell phone usage. I've seen it on a few menus and think it's a great idea.

[johnsmith45678]

In Today's New York Times under Food Stuff by Florence Fabricant, there is this short item:

"Take Pity on the Poor Risotto

Noted, as "an environmental advisory," on the menu at Harry Cipriani, 781 Fifth Avenue (59th Street): "The use of cellular phones interferes with preparation of risotto."

If a restaurant, particularly a fine dining one, does not have a policy about cell phones or the GM is loathe to stop the cell phone use, what do you do? If one of the options you use is to ask the cell phone user to stop and they refuse, what then?

←

How does the use of cell phones interfere with the preparation of risotto? Is it because the kitchen staff has to stop what they're doing so they can beat the hell out of the offender?

[bandregg]

My wife and I have talked about how to handle this as future restauranteurs and we've decided to find some pre-modern era phone booths like hotels and some restaurants used to have and encourage people with cell phones that they might appreciate the privacy of using one.