We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

There used to be this concept called “personal space,” which included not only your physical space but some kind of expectation of freedom from, shall we say, aural intrusion. Unless you’re in a New Jersey diner, anyway; from personal experience I can tell you that aural intrusion in such places is to be expected.

Advertisement

These days, though, it seems like personal space is eroding. Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy took to X to give us an example of such rudeness come time back (last year, in fact, but the commentary still applies) in a post I just now stumbled across.

He made a fair point; sharing your personal conversations publicly is rude, at the very least. And yet we seem to be seeing it, more and more.

See Related: 

Merry Christmas With Pepperoni! Dave Portnoy Saves Pizzeria With Huge Holiday Gift

Dave Portnoy Lights Up George Clooney: If Biden Was So Far Gone—Why’d You Wait 3 Weeks to Tell Us?

Now, I told you that so I could tell you this.

As those of you who have been reading my work know, not all that long ago I was a jacket-and-tie corporate consultant, which meant traveling – a lot. For some time the airlines were considering technologies that would have enabled cellular phone usage on airliners in flight, which concept I found horrifying, for two reasons:

1) The only time I had any surcease from my own phone – which was my primary business phone – was when I was asleep or on an airplane in flight, and some years I think I spent as much time doing one as the other.

2) The only time I had any surcease from listening to other people’s loud conversations was also when I was on an airliner.

Advertisement

Yes, this has been going on for some time. Pretty much from the advent of modern cellular phones, some people have put them on speaker and engaged in shouted conversations in public. This brings me to an incident a few years back in the San Francisco airport, an incident that should serve as an object lesson.

On the day in question, I had just come through Customs after a long, long flight from Osaka, and was waiting for my plane to Denver. I was seated in one of those rows of chairs, fixed to the floor, back-to-back with another row. Seated in the chair immediately behind me was a young man, perhaps in his early 30s, who was engaged in one of these very shouted, speaker-phone conversations with (presumably) one of his buddies. The young man was evidently a salesman of some kind, and was engaged in bad-mouthing the prospective client he had just been to see.

And he gave the client’s name. And the name of his business. Loudly. Several times. So, being tired, cranky, and annoyed, I retrieved my own phone and looked up the business. And, yes, there was the named client – “Vice President of Operations” for the company in question.

Soon after, the young man hung up. I turned and tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Couldn’t help but hear what you were saying,” I told him. “Trouble with a client?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said – then proceeded to bad-mouth the prospective client. Again. To me. Until I held up my phone, with the client’s profile picture. “This the guy?” I asked.

Advertisement

“Yeah, that’s him!”

“OK,” I told the young man. “How do you know I don’t work for him? How do you know I’m not going to call him and describe this conversation?”

The look on the kid’s face spoke volumes. He got up and moved to another seat, and I’ll bet he had a few anxious days. I was tempted to call the prospective client – there was a phone number on his profile. I didn’t. Leave well enough alone, right? But I hope that young man learned something from the encounter.

Manners exist for a reason. They lubricate our social interactions. They protect our interests. They are essential in being able to suffer through long plane flights or dealing with crowded venues like airports without wanting to knock someone’s block off. Maintaining a level of discretion in your personal conversations is a big part of that.

The comments on Dave Portnoy’s post were spicy and showed a range of opinions. But I think Mr. Portnoy is right here. Shouting into a phone on speaker in public is rude. People who do it for no good reason are ill-mannered. That’s all there is to it.