Reader Submission by Steve.

The Phone Addict and/or Mr. Important:

We’ve all become so addicted to our cell phones, texting, sending tweets, messages, etc. that it’s easy to behave like a jerk when using our phones.

I was in a meeting with a customer recently along with a co-worker. My co-worker kept his cell phone on the desk the whole time, and would repeatedly look at his phone and send texts or messages to someone(s). What happened to the days when you would pay attention to what you were doing and who you were talking to?

Clearly my co-worker made it clear to our customer that he and/or whatever he was texting about was more important than our customer. After the meeting, I drove back to the office with my co-worker, and asked him not to have his phone at a customer meeting again. At first he was a little snippy, but then as we talked through it, he realized he was in the wrong.

He later called our customer and apologized. While it was nice he apologized, it would have been better if he had never been rude in the first place. So I guess the moral of the story is to keep your phone put away when you’re talking to someone. Otherwise, you’re telling that person they’re not very important to you.

Thanks for the great site!