THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING
On Common Sense Stuff
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THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING On Common Sense Stuff
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Correcting Society One Dude at a Time (From
This Is Your Captain Speaking) Okay, I’ll admit it’s a pet peeve of mine and perhaps I behaved badly because I was spring loaded to the “I’m ticked” position. But it was due to the fact that it happens so often, and if someone doesn’t do something about it, it’ll only get worse. Remember, it’s not vengeance (or not just vengeance anyway) if it is done for the purpose of correcting the situation. As an instructor pilot for our fine airline, I spend a considerable amount of time at our training facility, affectionately called by our pilot group Mecca or the Ice Palace. On this particular occasion I was scheduled for a one-week stint. My first morning there, while I sat in the hotel restaurant enjoying a leisurely breakfast, the guy sitting at the table next to me decided it was time to confirm all of his appointments for the day. Out comes the cell phone. I knew right then my hopes for a quiet, contemplative, read of the newspaper while sipping coffee were not to be realized. Gary (I learned his name within the first few seconds of his first call) either used a very cheap cell phone that didn’t work well or didn’t understand that one need not shout into the device in order to be heard on the other end. “This is Gary Fougonderwitz with Apocalypse Financial Services,” he shouted. “I just wanted to confirm my appointment with Dr. Spandecker at nine o’clock.” I’ve taken a little literary license here, but not much. Soon many others in the restaurant were craning their necks and rolling their eyes. If Gary had been in touch with life outside is own little shell at all, he would have noticed that he was being a nuisance to a lot of people. Gary had a lot of appointments for the day, and after about fifteen minutes of his shouting, I began to get a bit more than just annoyed. I was getting hot. Visions of my marching over to his table and demanding he knock it off started sweeping through my mind. But I’m a nice guy, so I really had no desire to ruin Gary’s day just because he was ignorant. Besides, he was a big dude. So I sat there and smoldered while Gary dialed and shouted, dialed and shouted. Then a thought came to me. Gary was not by any means the only one in the restaurant using a cell phone. There must have been ten others with the little electronic marvels stuck to their ears. Gary was just the only one who felt it necessary to shout. Casually, I whipped out my own cell phone. I knew the number; I’d heard it about fifteen times by then. Ol’ Gar seemed a little startled when his phone rang. When he answered, I resisted the urge to stare straight at him but watched him out of the corner of my eye as I pretended to look at my newspaper. “Gary, listen, this is one of your dining companions here in the restaurant,” I said softly into my phone. “You’re talking way too loud on your cell phone, buddy. I find that pretty annoying. Could you hold it down a tad?” He didn’t even respond. He gazed about the room for a few seconds, apparently realizing the call could have come from any of a number of people. I thought for a moment he might jump to his feet and shout at everybody there, in which case I envisioned everyone in unison shouting back at him to knock it off. But no, he simply flipped his phone shut, consulted his palm pilot, and dialed another number, resuming his shouted conversations as though nothing had happened. I did a slow burn for a few minutes then left. Back to the top The next morning I was very much dismayed when, shortly after I was seated in the restaurant, in waltzes Ol’ Gar, cell phone already stuck to his ear, for a replay of the previous day. I tried to ignore him, I really did. But it was simply impossible. Recognizing my earlier tactic had been unsuccessful, I spent my meal trying to come up with a way to get back at…no, no, to correct the situation. It finally came to me, and I began to surreptitiously take notes. Later that day I called Gary on his cell and told him what a fine job he was doing. I didn’t, of course, identify myself, but I’m sure Gary recognized me to be the same caller from the day before (maybe not). Using my notes I explained to Gar how wonderful it was that he had all those appointments. In minute detail I went through his whole day quoting times, names, and places. I felt sure that even someone as self-absorbed as Gary would, though he might not care one whit about annoying folks, realize that it was not a good idea to broadcast his business to the whole world. The next morning in the restaurant it was déjà vu, again. In exasperation, I took even more careful notes and hurried to my room after breakfast. It took only a few minutes with the phone book to have the numbers for all of Gary’s appointments for the day. Starting with the earliest, I worked my way through the entire list. Identifying myself as Gary Fougonderwitz with Apocalypse Financial Services, I very apologetically canceled every one of the appointments. Gary didn’t show up for breakfast the next morning. So you see, it’s not just revenge; it’s correction. Later that week I overheard another cell phone shouter chortling to one of his compatriots about how he was going to blind side his competition in a bid to provide a giant computer networking system. I called his competition and told him what the bid was going to be. Back to the top
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