Library Manners

Use good manners when in the library.

• Always use a quiet voice when talking, or reading.
• Politely ask for help from the librarians.
• Be patient and quiet while waiting to check out.
• Take care of your library books and check them in on time.

It's fun to visit the library when everyone uses good maners.

Cell Phone Etiquette

The Top Eight Rules of Proper Cell Phone Etiquette at WORK:

1. Turn your ringer OFF or set to "vibrate".

   Unless your cell phone is "company-issued for business use only", set your unit to vibrate while at your desk, or school. Even if you've selected a tasteful ring tone, repetitive incoming calls will be noticed (negatively) by co-workers and management.

2. Let "bread and milk" and other unimportant calls go to voicemail.

   While it's wonderful to have a live connection to the important people in your life, children, parents, other family and friends, frequent "chatty" calls during your workday, or schoolday, will often reflect negatively on your perceived concentration on your duties.

3. When you must use your cell phone, find a private, quiet place to make your calls.

   Regardless of where you are, most etiquette advisors agree you should always observe the "ten-foot rule". Maintain a buffer zone of at least ten feet from others while you're using your cell phone! While at work, or school, you should make every attempt to expand that distance and find locations that do not infringe on co-workers trying to perform their jobs.

4. Don't bring your cell phone to meetings.

   School classrooms should be considered meetings!

   Neglecting this one rule can do career damage even when you adhere to most of the other recommendations. Some etiquette gurus recommend that, should an important call be expected, either for business or a family emergency, you could put your cell phone on "vibrate" and bring it with you. Yes, students may expect this type of call − but they are very rare! Treat this exception with extreme caution, however. Regardless of the urgency of the expected call, your boss will most certainly take a very dim view of a meeting interruption because of your cell phone. It is a far better idea to leave your cell phone at your desk to avoid any "interruption temptation".

5. Never use your cell phone in restrooms.

   This rule may, at first, appear frivolous, but the statistics indicate it is an important component of cell phone etiquette. Why? You often do not know who else may be using the facilities. Should you communicate private information or sensitive work issues, you may easily be overheard without your knowledge. There are some well-documented horror stories of information delivered into the wrong hands by this simple, innocuous rule violation.

6. Eliminating embarrassing ring tones.

   Should you have a psychological need to use a cutesy or outrageous ring tone while away from your job, be very careful when you are at work, or school. Either keep your cell phone on vibrate at all times at work or change to a more professional ring tone during your work day. Along with annoying both co-workers and supervisors, a silly ring tone can negatively impact your career by displaying a less than professional, serious image to management.

7. Maintain a low voice during cell phone conversations.

   Often called "holding court", having loud conversations about nothing, a loud voice can be extremely annoying to anyone within earshot. Often, the ten-foot rule becomes useless during one of these situations. Unless you are in the middle of a loud construction site, you should understand that cell phone microphones are very sensitive and only inches away from your mouth. There is normally no need to increase your voice to levels used by seminar leaders talking without microphones.

8. Use text messages instead of voice calls to maintain professionalism.

   This business etiquette rule DOES NOT apply to students at school, since the vast majority of their usage IS texting! At school, texting is just as inappropriate, if not more so, than voice calls!

   If you need to communicate on a personal level and feel that a voice call might be inappropriate, send a text message to your caller. It's quiet, fast, and to the point. Unless you're trying to set a world's record for the largest thumbs on the planet, a few text messages during the workday keeps your lines of communications open without wasting your time or annoying co-workers.

 
EVERYONE should practice basic cell phone etiquette in PUBLIC:

1. Talking too loudly.

   For some bizarre reason people feel the need to raise their voices while on their phones. Surely we've come far enough, technologically speaking, to trust the phone's microphone to adequately amplify and carry your voice. Your mouth couldn't physically be any closer to the microphone! There's no need to yell!

   Note: There are attention-seekers out there who speak loudly on purpose to "show off" recent accomplishments and victories to impress surrounding strangers. Do not hate them too much, they are cursed to constantly seek approval from anyone within earshot.

2. Holding inappropriate conversations in public.

   No one needs to hear how wasted you were last night! Keep your personal conversations personal. If you don't want people to see you crying in line at the bank or while ordering a stuffed-crust pizza, refrain from having emotional conversations in public. Offer to call the person back, step outside, or find a quiet place where you can openly and unabashedly describe your new foot fungus.

3. Rudely interrupting conversations.

   Have you ever felt the only way to maintain a conversation with the person right in front of you is to give them a call? Ever arrive at the climax of a hilarious story, only to have the momentum ruined by "Sorry, I gotta take this"? Why is the disembodied voice of someone else more important than the flesh and blood standing before you? It's very frustrating to stand around waiting while your "friend", date, or family member gets into a phone conversation on your time. When this happens, just walk away!

4. Checking your phone at the movies.

   Movie theater announcements and people who are quick to "shhhh" have done a decent job of reducing cell phone rings over the years. But people are still checking their calls and text messaging rfiends, silently, but equally annoyingly. There's a reason why we spend an arm and a leg to watch movies in the theater. When the lights go out and the screen lights up, we try to forget our everyday troubles and we submerse ourselves into whatever world we bought tickets to see. We escape. But when out of the corner of our eyes we see someone's entire face light up while they check their phone messages, we're yanked right back to reality and are reminded of how many jerks per square foot there are in the world. Turn your phones off, have a little consideration for the people around you. The world won't stop spinning if you're unavailable for 2 hours.

5. Texting while driving.

   According to a Harvard University study, cell phones cause over 200 deaths and half a million injuries each year. And that's with eyes on the road! Laws are in place to make sure people aren't talking on their phones, and yet people are typing?! Anyone caught texting while driving should be stripped of their driving license forever.

6. Texting while talking.

   You ever have someone try to listen to you while text messaging someone else? You want to give them points for making the effort as they clumsily insert "oh yeahs" and "un huhs" at all the wrong moments, cutting you off mid-sentence with a "no way" as they furiously thumb type in your face, but at the same time you want to spike their phone to the ground for being unbelievably rude!

7. Texting small talk.

   Does our friendship mean nothing? Have we become so lazy and disinterested in each other's lives that we're asking people to sum up their days with a text? "How r u?" "What's up?" "What's new?" These arbitrary questions are annoying enough when asked in person, but at least we have the ability to fire back equally insignificant responses in one second or less. But expecting people to waste their time typing "not bad, u?" or heaven forbid "let me tell you about my day" is about as lame and pointless as your appendix.

8. Loud and annoying ringtones.

   Here's a story to make the point:

   I was riding the bus to work one morning, when out of nowhere the silence was shattered with screaming. I just about had a cardiac arrest and many of the people on the bus jumped out of their seats. It was only when the repetitive screaming suddenly tripled in volume that we all discovered the culprit: a cell phone. Some jerk pulled the phone out of his pocket, embarrassed at how loud it was, and accidentally dropped it on the bus floor. The joke now on him, the whole bus watched in amusement as this dude's face grew redder and redder, scrambling to pick up and silence the screams coming from his phone.

   While there are far too many stupid ringtones out there to mention here, the story makes the point: turn down your stupid ringtone! No one thinks you're clever, or funny, or musically savvy when you're little pocket jukebox interrupts their thoughts. That guy on the bus probably thought his scream-tone was hysterical, but the looks on everyone else's face read loud and clear: "What a jerk!"

9. Disturbing live performances.

   Comedy shows, concerts, plays etc. − nothing is worse than having art ruined by a ringing cell phone. You ruin someone's comedy act or interrupt an actor on stage, in turn spoiling the experience for everyone around you who's spent their hard earned money on a night out, and you're an arrogant jerk who should be put in the corner with the rest of the 5 year olds.

10. Location location location!

    There are countless locations where "taking the call" is inappropriate and extremely annoying to those around you. The most frustrating are in libraries, elevators, and fast food restaurant lines. Do you have no respect of others at all?! Is it gonna kill you to take it outside (library) or wait until people are not held captive INCHES from you (elevator or waiting in line)?!