My first experience with a Bluetooth headset
Contributing Author: Chad Haverfield
While dining in a Manhattan restaurant several years ago, my internal dialog went something like this:
“What the hell does that guy who just walked in have in his ear? It’s almost like a cellular headset only it’s silver and has this strobe-like light on it and I don’t see a cord or a phone. Could he be a starship commander on a mission from the future? Oh, man. What’s gone wrong and why was he sent here? Maybe I should tell him to take that thing off before his cover is – Wait, wait, wait! Before I get ahead of myself… He does seem to be rambling to himself like a deranged vagabond and, although I’m not a fan of the genre, he certainly doesn’t look to me like Starfleet material. Hey, it is a cellular headpiece! Wow! Check that out. Yet another gift to us from the technology gods. Oh, and there’s his party waving him over from the table in the corner. Okay, he sees them and he’s heading over. Hmm. I wonder why he isn’t taking his new little toy off. Clearly his previous call has ended. Alright, now he’s greeting and shaking hands with everyone at the table. Surely basic etiquette will dictate that he take off his ear-phone before he sits………..Oh. I guess not.
My god! He’s been sitting for fifteen minutes at the table with his headset/ear-thingy still on while talking to the other four members of the group. How can that flashing light on it not be aggravating everyone at his table? What is he thinking? Does he think it looks cool? Is that possible? Is he waiting for a call so urgent that the time lost from bringing the phone from his pocket to his ear could spell disaster? How are the other people at his table not so thoroughly insulted that they aren’t bludgeoning him repeatedly with the pepper mill? I’m thirty feet away and am having to pull back the reigns on my tongue with all my might! What is this dude’s major malfunction?!”
This was my first experience with a Bluetooth headset and a Bluetooth headset abuser. Unfortunately cases just like this have become all the more common over the years. Technology can be great but, within those aspects of our lives it makes so much easier, we must fight not lose sight of the most simple and fundamental of manners that bond us as a civilized people. Remember – When you wear your Bluetooth or any other cell phone attachment as a permanent accessory, the very clear message you are sending to everyone you come in contact with is, “I would rather be doing ANYTHING other than talking to the likes of you. Please, someone more important, call me and take me away from all this!!”
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