Here’s a scenario for you: I’m standing at the check-in desk for my flight to New York.
The lady behind the desk is lazily blowing large bubbles with her gum. She takes my boarding pass and notices I’m flying as the guest of an employee. She looks up at me and proceeds to tell me there’s an open exit seat.
As I begin to tell her the ample leg room would be more than welcome, she whips out her phone mid sentence and cuts me off.
She proceeds to go into a long-winded conversation, and it may well have been important, or at least important to her.
But this ticket agent made no bones about the fact she was talking to her sister about her boyfriend and how lazy he had been in the past several days.
I stood with my jaw set, staring down the ticket agent. After five minutes, I coughed quietly to indicate my impatience. The line grows behind me and soon a man shouts “OH MY GOD WHO THE HELL CARES?” a la Peter Griffin.
He gets a rise out of the growing crowd.
Shockingly, the woman walks away from the desk, pantomiming senselessly to her sister who obviously cannot see her.
Twenty-two minutes later, a new desk attendant came to service my ticket. I spun around to see the previous ticket agent was continuing to chatter away.
Surprisingly, the new agent told me it wasn’t the first time that had happened and wasn’t sure why it had continued.
I look down and question, “Did that really just happen?”
Yes it did, and it’s an increasingly popular sensation gripping the nation.
Look-down-at-your-phone-mid-sentence-syndrome is one of the most frustrating ailments out there.
Could people possibly be any more rude? This person works at an airport and wanted to put me in an exit seat. Isn’t there something she has to ask me or check to make sure I’m physically able to operate the exit door?
Or is her sister’s lazy boyfriend her number one priority? Though many cases of LDAYPMSS don’t happen at an airport gate, this woman very well could have put lives in danger.
Not to mention that the holidays tend to bring some wildly grumpy travelers that have absolutely no patience for that kind of incompetence, myself included.
One of my friends complained to me about not getting a job recently, and she didn’t think pulling her phone out to answer a call about a dog grooming appointment factored in to her not getting the job.
Really? Is that a joke? I’m certainly not laughing.
Next time you whip out your phone to check on a funny text your friend just sent you, make sure the personal conversation you’re currently holding is your first priority.