The BlackBerry Brush-Off: Ranking Digital Age Rudeness

My favorite part of this week's crack up of the New York legislature is Governor Patterson's plea, "Think of the lobbyists!" My next favorite part is that Tom Golisano, the businessman who seems to have prodded two Democratic state senators into flipping to the GOP and instigating a Republican takeover, says he got mad at the Dems after a meeting at which Senate majority leader Malcolm Smith couldn't take his eyes off his BlackBerry. Ah, the BlackBerry brush off. I think I'd put that at the top of a list of digital age breaches of etiquette. As in:

1. Constant BlackBerry distraction during one-on-one meeting. Extra black mark if over lunch.

2. During meeting or lunch, answering call on cell phone, and talking for more than 30 seconds (unless it's your spouse or the babysitter).

3. Talking loudly on cell phone while everyone else in the room is trying to have a conversation. Which is what people do when they get together.

4. Typing audibly during phone call because you are, no not recording the every word of the person on the other end of the line, but answering someone else's e-mail.

5. On the phone, silently checking e-mail so that when the person you're talking to asks a question, a long pause ensues. At the end of which you have to say, "Ah, what did you just ask me?"

Other nominations?

Tags: blackberry, david patterson, malcolm smith, new york state senate, tom golisano

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Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

Comments

To fully integrate the

By: sammiha | Thu, 12/10/2009 - 07:20

To fully integrate the BlackBerry into a company's systems, the installation of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is required, along with either Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise email server applications.
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I completely agree. Texting

By: stephie | Tue, 12/01/2009 - 01:28

I completely agree. Texting is so impersonal. A phone call is essential if you want my attention.
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The devices are very popular

By: silver57 | Sun, 11/08/2009 - 22:39

The devices are very popular with some businesses, where they are primarily used to provide e-mail access to roaming employees. To fully integrate the BlackBerry into a company's systems, the installation of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is required, along with either Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise email server applications.

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On July 17, 2008, Paterson

By: s.keski | Thu, 10/29/2009 - 23:08

On July 17, 2008, Paterson was the keynote speaker addressing the 99th annual convention of the NAACP in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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The original BlackBerry

By: sammiha | Thu, 10/29/2009 - 15:30

The original BlackBerry device had a monochrome display, but all current models have color displays.
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I should probably add,

By: hommerock | Mon, 10/05/2009 - 06:03

I should probably add, however, that I am guilty of every single thing on this list.

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the businessman who seems to

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the businessman who seems to have prodded two Democratic state senators into flipping to the GOP and instigating a Republican takeover, says he got mad at the Dems after a meeting at which Senate majority leader Malcolm Smith couldn't take his eyes off his BlackBerry.
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