The Split Second-In Consideration of Others and Taking that Moment to Consider Others with Devices that Make Noise

I still work on my book, The Split Second:  In Consideration of Others or Look Up from the Phone and How to Deal with Rudeness in Others, and this is not an easy thing to “get out there and get recognized.”  Anyone who reads this, PLEASE share this with friends. Thanks

On Sunday morning, I went to IHOP again very early as I like to do for my usual Swedish Crepes and iced tea and the loveliest waitress takes good care of me each time.  Soon after I was seated, a gentleman entered the restaurant and sat two booths away.  I must admit that he was very kind to our waitress so I will give him that. However, like so many restaurant patrons who are alone (and several who are not alone), he took out his cell phone (or Smart Phone, if you will—maybe it was an Android).  There is nothing wrong with merely taking out the phone in a restaurant UNTIL one allows sound to emit from the phone and that is what this gentleman did over and over with different (I think) videos he had on his phone.  When I am seated in IHOP,  I usually read the morning newspaper and/or one of the books I am currently reading, and this is what I was doing.  The gentleman was, I believe, sorting through the videos on his phone and each one was loud enough to disturb others around him. Often this sound for me is like one getting ready to spit of lot of something in his/her mouth. With each new video he came across, a new loud sound was projected through the restaurant. I found it very disruptive.  And I had to laugh that when the fantastic waitress brought his food, he had to take a picture of it (I have seen in the comics, one where a person holds out his phone and says to his friend, “Would you like to see the 75, 000 pictures of all the meals I have eaten in the last 25 years?)

This man’s rudeness was not the worst I have experienced in a restaurant or any other location.  Once when I was transferring from the Gold Line to the Red Line on LA’s Metro Rail system, another gentleman had a device like Amazon’s Echo or Alexa (I won’t have these in my house because I do not want to have to deal with HAL in my home—reference to 2001, A Space Odyssey) with VERY blaring music.  It felt like he was following me from one train to another.  I jumped in one car of the Red Line and so did he; thank goodness, I was able to get into another car. This music was almost deafening.  I frame these occurrences in my book as an attitude of “I want to listen to my music so everyone else should, too.” Of course, what both gentlemen needed to do was to (as I write and say it) put the music in their ear—using an ear phone or ear bud so they can listen to the music as loudly as they want and the rest of us do not hear it whatsoever.  However, it is the same old attitude of “I’m going to do what I want to do when I want to do it

(in my book, I run that phrase together as one might say it real fast: ImgonnadowhatIwanndowhenIwannadoit). It should be obvious that these gentlemen’s behavior is such that they are thinking of NO ONE else but themselves and/or they do not care what their disturbance does to others. 

As far as being in a restaurant, the same goes for parents who play videos too loudly for their children to calm their children and keep them entertained. I am not a parent, but I think to myself that isn’t it too bad they can’t involve their children with conversation.  If they cannot do that then I say: go ahead, let them watch videos in the restaurant but put something in their ears so the rest of us don’t have to hear the kiddie video. It would be considerate of the people around them.