Your parents never taught you manners, so I will

[portia911]

So I give up a couple of hours in the first day off I have had in 3 months to come into work and do a presentation for one of the local hospo training institutes. The instructor brings in a dozen feral munts who have absolutely no hope of working in a customer facing role if you held a gun to their heads. Great.

So as a start giving them my speil and imparting my infinate wisdom to the great unwashed I hear the click click click of text messaging from the one standing next to me. I stop talking. The room goes silent except for the clicking. I turn to face the culprit and for the next 30 seconds she is compeltey oblivious to the fact everyone in the room is watching her and me.

Me - sarcastic angry person
FM - Feral munt

Me - Excuse me. Am I boring you?
FM- nah I'm just sending a message to my mate
Me - Great. Was it worth it?
FM - huh?
Me - Your behaviour is extremely rude. If you worked for me you would have just lost about $2000 worth of performance bonus. I did not give up my afternoon to help you with your course to put up with this. Go and wait in the van.

Ok it was a bit harsh but FFS, what ever happened to manners?

[Chanlin]

Nah I don't think you were bad at all. I've had college professors do as much and worse. Its rude to be overtly ignoring you like that when that's not what they are there for.

Its funnier when the prof manages to sneak up behind someone and reads what they are typing out loud.

[AdminAssistant]

A good part of my GTA training orientation earlier this week was "How do deal with students and their *^%&*% electronics".

I need to post about that....

Speaking of professors... I had one who would answer phones that rang in his class. In funny accents. AND he would make up stories. Remember kids, once tenured, professors can get away with ANYTHING.

[Imogene]

Hey, not that I would ever do such a thing (stupid text messaging not on my cell phone... *grumble, mutter*) But I have the ability to listen and comprehend while not paying the slightest bit of attention to you. One of my teachers taught me in High school how to multitask my brain.
I point you at an example where a teacher was trying to explain how telephony can get disrupted by having one of my classmates start reciting the alphabet. Mid stream, the teacher starts talking over him. Once classmate finishes, teach looks at the room and says, "Now, did anyone understand what I was saying AND what K was saying?" I raised my hand. Teach looks at me, and says, "And that's an example of a dual processor."

[Evil Queen]

I'm currently teaching my Boss K's monsters kids manners. It seems to have rubbed off on them pretty well. At least, from what I'm told anyways. I haven't seen them in a few weeks.

[One-Fang]

I can almost do that multi task thing. I reckon I do get around 70% of two things happening at once. In most cases, 70% of a message is actually fine. You get the gist of what's going on.

Occasionally though, I have to go "Whoa, wait ... what???" and get a bit re-said.

[Soulstealer]

A good part of my GTA training orientation earlier this week was "How do deal with students and their *^%&*% electronics".

I need this as a manual.

Speaking of professors... I had one who would answer phones that rang in his class. In funny accents. AND he would make up stories. Remember kids, once tenured, professors can get away with ANYTHING.

Or do research for creationist groups when you're in an anthropology department.

[Polenicus]

Hey, not that I would ever do such a thing (stupid text messaging not on my cell phone... *grumble, mutter*) But I have the ability to listen and comprehend while not paying the slightest bit of attention to you. One of my teachers taught me in High school how to multitask my brain.
I point you at an example where a teacher was trying to explain how telephony can get disrupted by having one of my classmates start reciting the alphabet. Mid stream, the teacher starts talking over him. Once classmate finishes, teach looks at the room and says, "Now, did anyone understand what I was saying AND what K was saying?" I raised my hand. Teach looks at me, and says, "And that's an example of a dual processor."

Y'see, I can't do that. I can have two things going, and toggle between them fairly easily, and be able to fill the gaps enough to comprehend both threads, but more than two and I kinda get glazed eyes, forget where I am, and discover at the end of everything I have no memory of ANY of what was said, and a paper in front of me with 'I AM A FISH' written 400 times.

[Golden Phoenix]

[snippy!]
a paper in front of me with 'I AM A FISH' written 400 times.

Do you do a silly dance and pass out afterwards?

I can't do the listen-to-two-things task, but mainly because i have a hearing problem where i can't pick out individual noises from background sounds.

(Think concentrating on one person's voice at a party)

However i can and do multitask, you have to when a customer is bending your ear about their bill and you're trying to fix it at the same time because you get marked on your call handling time (which is deeply unfair as any callcentre worker wil agree)

[Phone Jockey]

Me - Your behaviour is extremely rude. If you worked for me you would have just lost about $2000 worth of performance bonus. I did not give up my afternoon to help you with your course to put up with this. Go and wait in the van.

Ok it was a bit harsh but FFS, what ever happened to manners?

YOU ARE AWESOME! Stick to those guns, that's why you're there. Plus, you've shown them all that there are consequences for acting like dipshits.

[Bliss]

Hey, not that I would ever do such a thing (stupid text messaging not on my cell phone... *grumble, mutter*) But I have the ability to listen and comprehend while not paying the slightest bit of attention to you. One of my teachers taught me in High school how to multitask my brain.

I can do it too, in fact I've done it most of my life and in normal situations sometimes I need to multitask to keep idle threads occupied so my main core (brain) can think clearly.

But the thing and the case here is not whether we have the ability or not, but what the message of us multitasking gives our interlocutor (the other person). Even if we can multitask without loosing our concentration, the body language gives the other person the feeling they're not important to you (whether it's true or not, it's how human minds react) and it's that type of message that portia is trying to teach against.

Portia gave this person one chance to understand they where passing the wrong message back "Am I boring you?" the person was so immersed in her texting that she missed the body, possibly facial, and specially textual message that she was receiving a warning, responded aloofly thus showing she did NOT care to be there, and portia acted acoordingly.

Damn... being a manager now is really changing my perception of the world.

[AdminAssistant]

Well, the biggest issue with texting/IM/computer usage/etc. in the classroom is that it can be distracting to other students. Personally, if you'd rather play computer games than pay attention to the class you've paid for, fine. It's not MY grade point on the line. But the instant you start disturbing someone who is actually trying to learn something - then we have a problem.

I'm a real hardass about stuff like this. If you can't put away the electronics for 50 blessed minutes get the hell out of my class.

[texasbelle5]

OK I give up. What is a feral munt? Aussie slang? I am in the US.

[tollbaby]

I had a training course a few months ago that my coworkers still tease me about. The trainer was ... *sigh* a major cougar, and kept laying hands on the male students *rolls eyes* She was boring, didn't really know her stuff very well, and it was boring subject matter to boot. She got peeved at me a couple of times for asking questions she didn't know the answers to (which pertained EXACTLY to the subject matter, so for her not to know the answers kind of made her look dumb).

I tuned her out and started napping. She noticed. She walked right up to me, and while my coworkers could see it coming, there was no way for them to warn me (it was kind of like a Dash-8 plane where there are two seats on one side of teh aisle and one seat on the other side - I was on the side with one seat).

She stops dead in front of me and asks me a question - remember me? I'M the one sleeping I opened my eyes, gave her the exact answer she wanted in a total deadpan, and went back to napping. My coworkers had to physically restrain themselves not to burst out laughing. This lady was now PISSED.

The thing with me is, when I'm "napping", I can hear EVERYTHING that's going on around me, because I don't allow myself to relax totally. While I was actually sleeping, I heard every bloody word she said, and was aware enough to pop awake when she walked up to me and answer her question on the spot. It's a talent that has served me well working in call centres, because on slower days, I can nap between calls (very useful when you have a newborn and aren't getting enough sleep - lord I do NOT miss those days! LOL).

One of my coworkers tells this story to anybody who will listen because it tickles him pink that I was able to gall her like that. Now in my case, it was a very boring class in which NONE of us learned anything new (seriously, any questions we had regarding anything we DIDN'T know, she didn't know either, and we complained to our boss afterward). I don't use electronics or futz around on the computer during training though. But trust me, if I tune you out, it's because 1- I don't want to be there and 2- you *are* boring me

I applaud you for kicking her out though

[Big-box-retail-blues]

The issue is it is rude. Who cares how many processes your brain can handle at once? It is rude. Get off the phone!