Get off your phone...

[Ophbalance]

Without fail, and I'm talking greater than 75% here, when I'm out food shopping my wife will call JUST when I hit the checkout. It's like she's got a 6th sense for when I'm about to pay. And I ignore the call each and every time (which gets me grief, but meh). Now, if you shot me an IM (and she knows how) I could at least deal with it. But it's always a call.

[Ironclad Alibi]

She resembled and was very lovingly called Miss Trunchbull by the rest of the staff, and 95% of the time the customer would instantly shut up and put their phone down. She often joked that she kept an entire chocolate cake underneath the counter just in case.

I bet my mother's chocolate cake is better.

(Waits to be forced to eat the entire chocolate cake. )

[Dreamstalker]

Mom knows to text me first if I'm out; if I can call her back I will (when I'm on the subway, I can respond quicker to a text; also there's some quirk where voice calls may not make it through in a tunnel but text messages will).

[emax4]

I work at a big box hardware store, and while I have customers on their phones at times, I don't mind too much. Its not like I need constant interaction with them. Whenever I need their input I just talk louder. Whenever my last day is though, I'm going to say real loud (so that the person on the other end can hear), "THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING ADULT MART!"

[wolfie]

also there's some quirk where voice calls may not make it through in a tunnel but text messages will).

It's not a quirk. Subway tunnels provide good shielding, so most data packets won't get through. For a voice call to work, you need virtually all the packets to get through on the first try. For a text to work, you need ONE packet to get through, and it doesn't matter if it's delayed by a few seconds due to the need to retry many times.

[raudf]

I'd have a family member that would call my cell for any and all reasons, usually at the worst possible time, like at the checkout. This is the kind of family member that doesn't keep it to one call a day, instead preferring to call whenever a random thought popped into their head (dear dogs, it really shouldn't have been that often, her head was like blown glass.)

One day, while at the check out, I'd had enough. This was the third time the woman had called during this shopping trip and I'd only been in the store for 10 minutes. These were her empty-headed thoughts (I guess she was just proud she'd actually gotten a thought and wanted everyone to know?) that just fluttered out of her mouth whenever she got me on line. And heaven help me if I failed to answer. I'd just gotten off the phone with her, when I got to the cashier, gotten everything scanned and was just about to pay. The. Phone. FARKING RINGS. And it is her. AGAIN. I glare at the phone and this time look at the cashier, shake my head and sit my phone to the side. I pay, the phone has already got to voicemail and guess what? She calls. Again.

I answer and to say I was a troll would be an understatement. I nod a goodbye to the cashier, step out of the way and answer, "You had better be dead, in the hopsital dying or your house is on fire. If this is another 'I just saw the most beautiful butterfly,' call, I will have you blocked for 24 hours."

I pissed her off for a week. A sweet, peaceful week. And then I changed my number....

[Zellie Crescent]

When I worked in Englishtown we had really big signs both inside the store and for the booth outside that said in BIG BOLD LETTERS If you are on your phone you WILL be ignored! And we meant it too, no matter how much they complained.

[Seanette]

I answer and to say I was a troll would be an understatement. I nod a goodbye to the cashier, step out of the way and answer, "You had better be dead, in the hopsital dying or your house is on fire. If this is another 'I just saw the most beautiful butterfly,' call, I will have you blocked for 24 hours."

I pissed her off for a week. A sweet, peaceful week. And then I changed my number....

Is it really being a troll if the person really deserves it?

[eltf177]

Is it really being a troll if the person really deserves it?

In a word - no...

[Really]

It's not just cashiers, it's any face to face position.

My current job is registering people for blood work. This involves a lot of questions to make sure I have the correct person, correct account, and correct blood work (you'd be amazed at the errors I catch just by talking to people).

This woman comes in and walks up to me on the phone. She just throws a insurance card at me and keeps talking away. Now Insurance cards have names on them but it could be theirs, spouses, childs, who knows so I can't go off of that and I NEED a birthday to go on, so I just sit there and stare at her. Took 10 mins before she realized that I hadn't moved then got an attitude over how long she was waiting. Long story short by the time she left, she was off her phone and was actually able to get my part of stuff done in 3 mins. That's about 12 mins longer then it should have taken. Hopefully the phlebotomist poked her with a dull needle when she was talking on the phone while they did their stuff.

[wolfie]

Hopefully the phlebotomist poked her with a dull needle that didn't have the burr removed after sharpening when she was talking on the phone while they did their stuff.

Fixed that for you. That happened to my mother when she was young (back in the days of re-usable needles, but same thing could happen if one misses a step with single-use needles. She had an OUCH! when the doctor pulled the needle out - when he went to do the initial clean-off with a cotton ball, strands of cotton stuck to the needle because of the burr (think of the point curling back like a hook).

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Sorta off topic but maybe not: am I the only person who flushes the nearest toilet when there's somebody on the phone in the bathroom with me?

[Ironclad Alibi]

Sorta off topic but maybe not: am I the only person who flushes the nearest toilet when there's somebody on the phone in the bathroom with me?

Not any more.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Sorta off topic but maybe not: am I the only person who flushes the nearest toilet when there's somebody on the phone in the bathroom with me?

Nope. Once I did that in a McDonalds loo cuz this woman was on the phone while she was peeing. XD

[Dreamstalker]

I've done that at work before; the employee restroom has 3 stalls, and for some reason the girls like to have their phone convos in there. They'll stand by the sink and do nothing but yak on the phone.