You guys never heard of silent mode ?

This interesting incident happened at a friend's workplace. Their VP was visiting their Chennai
operations and last Wednesday, he was to have a meeting with all the Chennai staff. Given the
fact that cellphones are all over the place in India, with some people even carrying more than
one phone, their local manager was apprehensive about phones ringing during the meeting with the big shot.

So, much in advance, he made it clear to his staff that they were not to bring the phones to the
meeting and should instead leave them at the receptionist/secretary's desk. Since the meeting
included the secretary also, the office-boy was asked to man the reception for the duration of
the meeting.

The meeting goes peacefully without any intrusive cellphones ringing and the manager is
happy. The staff come to collect their phones from the secretary's desk and find that one
of the phones is missing. And it so happens that it was the most expensive of them all,
costing around 18000 rupees (around 460$).

The office-boy insists that he never left the reception area for the duration of the meeting.
So, where did the phone vanish ? Then he remembers that there was a visitor who came in during the time everyone was at the meeting. A physically-challenged young guy, who had
come in to solicit financial help.

Since everyone was at the meeting, the office-boy asked him to come some other time.
Just as he turned to leave, the office-boy got busy with a telephone call and did not notice
the guy pick up one of the cellphones lying on the desk, on his way out.

When my friend narrated this incident to me, I was like, "Have you guys never heard of the 'silent mode' feature available on almost all phones ?" Just put the phone into silent-mode
and you could be in the meeting with the phone on you, but without disturbing anyone.

They were surely aware of the feature, but since the boss ordered something, they decided to
humour him, instead of suggesting this more practical option to him. If they had, they would
have not had to lose that cellphone. I am sure the lesson is learnt, though a costly one.

Silent-mode (or manner-mode, as it is known in Japan) is big in Japan. In the metro trains,
there are signs requesting cellphone users to put their phones in manner-mode while commuting, so as to not disturb others. After three visits and countless trips on the metro,
I am yet to hear even one phone ring, let alone see someone talk on the phone.

Which is so unlike the mobile users in India, who think it is their privelege to talk aloud on
their mobiles, irrespective of the location, be it a hospital or theatre or for that matter any
public place. Infact, to me it has always looked like most of them derive some kind of perverse pleasure in talking louder than required, just so that those around them can hear their talk, which could be about something as trivial as what they had for lunch.

Ofcourse, when it comes to cellphones, the Japanese are heavy users. Infact, to me, they look
like they are addicted to mobile phones. On trains, you could see most of them playing around
with their phones, mostly sending / reading SMS-es or playing games. But then, like always, they take care to respect other's space and thus not only do not not talk on their phones, but
also ensure that they do not even disturb other commuters by their phones ringing.

While India surely has caught up with the world as far as embracing cellphone goes (actually
we lead the world in cellphone usage minutes, as per the latest figures), we are yet to learn
cellphone etiquette.