Meeting Manners-Observations of a Junior Engineer

Without going into naming names and pointing fingers I feel it is theraputic to discuss some common distrubances in corporate America. Sitting in a 2 hour briefing on the next "big thing", i'm surrounded by men at least 20 years my senior. Armed with their blackberries, computers and leftovers from lunchtime I witness how professionalism is notably lacking.

First of all I love my blackberry, and i'm proud to say I know how to turn the ringer (all the ring notifications) OFF during meetings. I know this is an advanced feature of "cutting edge" technology, but is it too much to ask people to silence their cell phones, and perhaps pretend you are in a movie theater??? Now this audience included a VP for the business area and I still observed more than 4 blackberries chiming to indicate email or phone calls. I was *hoping* this VP would have the kahones to remind his audience that its RUDE to leave them on. No such luck--maybe i'm more easily distracted, but I found myself *waiting* for the next ring to go off.

Next up is the laptop. Again, I love my laptop and all the little noises and reminders that are present in my daily life AT A DESK. However, dragging your laptop into a 2 hour meeting when all you have up is Outlook and MS Messenger...well it doesn't take a genius to see it is not necessary to attend a meeting youhave no intention of listening to.
These are the noises I heard "DO da loop"--indiacating an instant messge...."DA da loop'- returning the instant message. "DO da loop"-incoming "DA da loop"-outgoing. No one even flinched. When did this behavior become acceptable??

I'll tell you one thing...being a young engineer, attending conferences with other young engineers, I've observed better behavior from hungover college graduates. Call it the optimism of youth and drive to succeed that exists only when starting a new job. Really? No, I call it manners. No one sits there with their ringer on LOUD and their instant messenger up and running. In fact most will leave those unneccessary work tools alone and listen. I'm amazed that young engineers are sometimes percieved as lacking an attention span, yet our "senior management" can't seem to keep their toys in the box.

I'll end this tyrade with one last pet peeve. The socially inept person who chooses to chow down on doritos long after lunch time is over. So first he walks through the attendees, excusing himself while everyone shifts to let him by b/c undoubtedly he has a spot in the back. Everyone watches him reach for the loud bag of chips. he happens to sit next to me, i watch him "try" to open the bag quietly, but as we all know, chip bags are not quiet. So he slowly makes a lot of noise and crunches down on those chips with determination and open disregard for those having to watch, smell, and hear his choice in mid afternoon snack.
Doritos leave cheesy fingers so sucking off the last reminants is clearly necessary. (gross) I found myself shifting my chair away from Mr. Doritos.

Professionalism in my opinion is best judged when no one is *watching*...during a meeting.