I'm In Yer Sound Range, Hatin' Yer Tawk

[plumtreeblossom]

Observation:

We live in a cell phone world, but it was a mistake to let phone booths fade into history. We need them back, to spare us from public-private conversations.

Go absolutely anywhere, and you will be privy to one side of any number of conversations. You'll hear the details of the GYN appointment, the meta about dinner, the helicopter parent micro-managing their college student. There's a young woman who is usually on my morning bus with an impossibly high-pitched voice, who spends the entire ride talking to Sweetie. "What are you doing now Sweetie? Are you having breakfast? Are you having a banana, or cereal, Sweetie? What did you say, Sweetie? I can't hear you cuz we hit a bump..." I picture Sweetie as a hairy and corpulent semi-employed truck driver in dirty boxer shorts, perhaps driving his roommate crazy with his "uuhs" and "whatevahs."

Outside the home, we used to have lots of small glass boxes just for telephone calls. They afforded a measure of privacy for the caller, and acted as a partial sound barrier so that those outside the box weren't subjected to a conversation they weren't supposed to be hearing.

At work, as a courtesy to all in our open floor plan office, if we get a call on our cell phone that isn't work-related we take it out in the hall. But try having a phone conversation out in the hall, where there are 7 or 8 other people having a phone conversation out in the hall. You can't hear yourself think.

I would delight at seeing booths resurrected for those courteous enough to have at least some of their cell phone conversation inside the booths. The booths don't need to even have landline phones in them. Just a privacy booth. Privacy. I'd use it.

Sometimes I worry how far we actually are from open floor plan public restrooms...

Comments

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Here's the classic one I'll never forget that I overheard myself once. On the train, commuting home from boston, trains' so crowded this 20-something guy has to stand up. People all round. His phone rings, and he speaks in a normal volume'd tone. "Hi honey! am I busy tonite? um, ....no, not at all! But can I call you back? I'm about to go into the tunnel and lose phone signal (we were totally outside of any tunnels). He hangs up. Makes another phone call.

"Hi Hun, I find that I'm still stuck late at the office. Can you tell little johnny that daddy can't make it to his game? Oh, you're cooking dinner for me? Well, it's really busy here, I'll get someplace to deliver me a sandwich or something. Don't know when I'll be back to the house, likely after midnight, again. I can hear the baby crying, so I'll let you attend to her. Bye"

hang up, dial. "Hi doll. where do you want to go? I have to stop at my apartment to shower and change, then I can pick you up and we can have a real night on the town....."

I was purely floored. Here's this guy, obviously living with his wife and kids, and not only has a lover on the side but an apartment where he can pretend to be a single playboy. Who knows who else might be on that subway car overhearing his nefarious schemes? What an idiot!

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

OMFG!

you should have hit on him, found out his name and number, and then called his wife and told her everything.

what an asshole!!!

[ron_newman]

Unfortunately, most of the booths went away decades ago, even while pay phones remained in popular use. Remember when Clark Kent looked around for a phone booth in the first Superman movie, but could only find an open-air pay phone?

Places where I still recall seeing phone booths in the last few years: Doyle's pub in Jamaica Plain. In the hall outside MIT's Hayden Library. (But I don't know if they still exist.)

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

ha ha. sounds like sweetie is a kid. maybe a 10 year old girl?

what i hate is when i step into the hall and someone else walks by r e a l l y slowly, like they are trying to hear everything they can. sometimes i want to be like "yeah, i sure can't stand that jordan guy. i can't believe i have to work with him." ha ha ha.

PS: ur subject line rocks

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

It makes the TARIDS even more archaic.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

And where's Superman supposed to change his outfit? :/

(I agree about the phone booths. We still need them!)

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

I'd read someplace that some fancy dining places are trying to bring the booths back for privacy/eliminating cell phone noise.

Of course most of these were places that already had phone booths (the fancy wooden ones with nice doors) and were getting rid of the payphones anyway...

[jasra]

We have specifically designated phone rooms for that purpose at my office. Multiple ones. It's pretty cool actually.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like the phone booths with phones in them, for those of us who don't have cell phones. (I remember reading that Stephen King is one of us. Yay!)

As for overhearing what I think should be private, I'm not much bothered by it. If somebody's talking too loud, which happens often, that is a problem, but a different one. I'm pretty sure I avoided using the cell phone my workplace required me to have for trashing my own privacy and the privacy of the people I talked with on it. I treasure such privacy as I can get! If others want to trash their own privacy in my presence, however, I doubt it's my problem. I'm likely to think the people are careless and utterly stupid for doing it, and never mind what I may opine based on the conversation half itself. And since the person on the other end is also getting something of a privacy wipe-out, I may hope that he or she can put a stop to the wrongheaded behavior. But I don't take it as an invasion of my space if others want to make noises that I'd make only in hiding--unless, as I said, they're too noisy.

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

Just a privacy booth. Privacy. I'd use it.

Problem is, too many would use it as a privy!