This event, will identify me to my students if they happen to stumble across this post. If any of you read this (M, S, S, B, or T), let me know. I don't think you will, but who knows you might google "quack, conference, speaker, confusing" some day. I think the chances of this are low. The blogosphere is a big, fairly anonymous space. Maybe this post will disappear in a few days....
The scene: A quiet conference session. The speaker presenting on a very serious topic. She's a young researcher and as a speaker, she's young, shaking, and nervous. My phone rings. The ring is a quack. It is rather loud. I scramble to turn it off., but my phone keeps quacking. The rings go on forever (okay, it was probably only 3 seconds). I turn off the ringer. The speaker is distracted. She says, "That's confusing." I turn 17 shades of red.
The chair of the session is a woman I greatly respect. She doesn't really know me, I think I've met her, but I'm not sure, and if we met I don't think she remembers me (and now I really hope she doesn't!), but still, I feel awful and like I've lost "points" in her eyes. Hopefully she can't read my name tag... There are worse things in life than a quacking phone in a quiet conference session. Heh. I am also embarrassed because my students are seeing me set a really good example for them. D'oh.
I use the quacking phone as a teachable moment after the session to point out this concept and tell them about this book. I explain how the technology should be a little better to make it more obvious which mode my phone is in (mute or ringer on). One of my students tells me I'd make a great Vulcan. I tell him thank you and take it as a compliment.
Yes, we can all agree, I am a geek.
7 comments:
I was in court one day and the defendant's phone stared meowing. The judge thought she had a kitten in her purse and questioned her about it. One of my funniest moments in court.
Amelia
Heh, I feel sorry for the poor girl, but it's also funny, because I know that quack so well. It's so realistic! Oh, and I'd love to have a meowing phone.
Hey PS,
MWH says you can load a meow sound on your iTouch and have alarms go off with a meow!
:-)
I would love a meowing phone too.
That is pretty funny about the court... I can just imagine.
I still can't believe my wife's ring tone uses fowl language ;-)
MWH
Okay... another bad pun...
1) The quack makes sense because I have ductoral students (MWH said that one earlier)
I used to work with someone who had recorded her cat mewing and used it as her ring tone. The mew sounded exactly like H crying when she was a tiny baby and it had the same effect. I was really pleased I only started working near the mewing phone after I'd finished lactating.
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