By Peter Cochrane, 6 March 2006 12:00
COMMENT
Written on the London to Ipswich InterCity train and sent to silicon.com a couple of days later via my home optical local loop connection
It's been a long hard day in London with a lot of one-on-one meetings and a major customer presentation. I was up at 5:00(GMT) and I am now on the 18:00(GMT) InterCity train heading home, feeling pleased with the day but a bit jaded. All I need right now is my coffee, biscuit, newspaper, and some peace and quiet. But not tonight it seems!
About four seats away is a gentleman (on this occasion pronounced 'fool') with a BlackBerry mobile device and a very loud voice. He is obviously intent on selling a customer something and is briefing his team. It seems he is the leader as he defines the strategy and assigns each of his unseen team with specific tasks and roles.
Customer products, names, preferences, relationships and monies are being broadcast to everyone within earshot. The strategy for the conference call is discussed, and the specific customer now identified by name and company, and openly described as a BlackBerry nut!
This is all very interesting stuff but I'm tired, he is breaking my concentration as I try to read, and frankly this is getting to be really annoying. In true Brit fashion the other passengers just stare at him in the vein hope he will switch off and stop. No chance, this guy is going at it as if this was human kind's last sales pitch. Eventually, he starts to close down the conversation. Relief might be here at last! Oh no, he goes on to announce the conference number and the pass code - and say he will see them all on the conference call in a minute.
Well, I tried to resist the temptation but I have to confess, I snapped! I dialled the conference number, was asked for the conference pass code, and entered it in. When asked for my name I made a grunting noise. Someone said: "Who is that?" I kept quiet.
Someone else logged on, and in the confusion of starting the conference I became a silent partner. How very easy, and how very profitable it could be, here I am on a sales call concerning... well I can't forget what I heard but I cannot divulge it either.
The conference started and I had the benefit of stereo sound - I was getting a direct audio feed from the boss a few seats away, and the phone version too. And so the customer dialled in as did the conference leader. The meeting got underway and I was privy to everything. My fellow passengers did not escape totally, however, as our disruptive passenger insisted on chipping in every few minutes - as loud as ever.
Gradually, the good side of my brain took over, and I was getting bored anyway, so I logged out. From behind me came the words: "Did we just lose someone?" And I went back to my newspaper, coffee and biscuit!
At this point I looked around the carriage and there seemed to be an abnormal number of mobile phones in use, and everyone seemed to be listening and not saying anything. Strange but then again, perhaps not...
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Simon Cox
Absolutley brilliant!
2. Chris Gare
Excellent Peter! Like most of us I see this so often on my trains out to the south west. Never had an opportunity quite like that but would relish it if I did. Where we differ I think, is that I err on the side of speaking up quite loudly usually to the embarrassment of the person annoying the carriage. If you look them straight in the eyes, feed back something of what you heard in a loud voice and wait they usually close down with a few cries of support from the otherwise silent audience in the carriage. Sadly, I often have to do this for often that not in the no-phones carriage. More power to your elbow Peter! Chris
3. martyn
I'm sure even Peter would appreciate the irony of a technology leader becoming too reliant on their spellchecker :-)
4. Phil Steeples
excellent Peter, I guess we both know who the company was too; before you dialled in.......
5. anonymous
perhaps an anonymous e-mail to a key competitor...
6. anonymous
Name and shame ! This guy should be blown away.
7. Peter Cochrane
Well I'm on the same train again in the morning for breakfast, and probably the same one heading home. It will be another long day....and so I will be listening...Just in case the offender is reading....
8. Mac
Next time why not announce that the noisy eijit on the Ipswich train has just made the call public? Ah... silence...
Suggest you do this from the bog using number withheld. If you can record the call and use a Marilyn Munro voice your chances of being prosecuted will probably drop significantly...
9. Alex
This is the stuff of my nightmares as a DBA.
Brilliant point made.