Properly Peeved

One of my biggest pet peeves?

When someone reaches for their smartphone to check their messages or emails in the middle of a conversation you are fully engaged with, and the person with the phone responds “Oh, keep talking… I’m listening…” and they trail off.

This has to be one of the most terribly inappropriate behaviours in modern society.
I refused to let the CEO of a client company in to decision making meetings (are there any other kinds of meetings you should attend?) and I refused to go to lunch with him after the first few weeks of working with him, simply because he could not go a few minutes without checking his phone.

The CEO would swing by for a status update or quick chat whilst I am deep in to my work and within a minute he would have his phone out, checking his messages or say “Hang on, I just need to take this” and then spend 15 or more minutes chatting with whoever it was on the other end of the line.

Suffice to say, I didn’t work with that client company for very long.

Vendors, or at least potential vendors, have also done this very same thing during sales pitch meetings. At the end of the pitch they remained very much “potential vendors.” No sale.

You cannot command respect when you aren’t fully engaged.