Surprise, checking email during meetings can be rude

Sometimes a study or survey comes along that tells us exactly what we already knew. A recent Yahoo HotJobs survey is just one of those. By now we all know that there are people out there (some of us probably included) that use their smartphones to check email while in meetings, or occasionally during conversation. It should also be of no surprise that those around them consider it rude.

This survey comes with a cautionary tale from Reuters, however. Anyone in New York State might know that the state senate has been going through a strange shift from a democratic majority to a republican controlled majority that is a bit confusing to understand. It seems that part of this shift came when billionaire contributor Tom Golisano was talking to Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith. Smith was more interested in checking his BlackBerry that talking to Golisano. This apparently caused Golisano to talk to other legislators who would then vote the Democrats out of power.

So now, not only will checking your email during meetings or conversations get you in trouble with your boss, co-workers, friends, family and significant others, but it could also shake up an entire state government. Some complain that the practice makes it difficult to retain information from either the meeting or the emails. Reuters talked to a business etiquette trainer, Barbara Pachter, who claimed that we might stop the practice in a year or two as people get more used to the idea of smartphones. Or it could just be that meetings will becoming less boring, which could possibly lead some people to refrain from checking their smartphones.

Read [Reuters]