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Comment by no1youknowz | Hacker News Reader

> I told him he was being rude and he just laughed like that was absurd.

When I meet people for coffee, lunch or whatever. My policy is phone face down and on vibrate. Only if it's an emergency do you pickup and answer.

I tell people respect my time, it's pretty valuable. If you want to occupy your space with someone, at least have the decency to be there at that moment.

Anyone fails to do that, I simply do not spend my time with them. You soon get to find out, who not only respects your time and values theirs. Verses people who don't do both.

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How do you phrase that in a way that doesn't offend?

Are you upfront with your policy, or do you only state it if people act like jerks with their phones?

> How do you phrase that in a way that doesn't offend?

Look, I'm GenX. Take that what you will.

> Are you upfront with your policy.

That am I. People who know me, know I value my time very well.

If someone doesn't know me, I tell them up front. It's down to them whether or not to continue forward or not. I don't mind.

It helps that I am an objectivist at heart. It makes things very very simple. I don't spend my life walking on egg shells.

Do you lay out the complete policy when meeting some one, or just as you feel you need to explain it? I'm imagining meeting someone who starts by saying "Before we begin, I'd like you to read over my human interaction policy".

It's not a problem when you know how to talk to people.

Bear in mind, although I am a developer. I have spent many years in sales environments, with upper management teams such as working with VP's and CEO's directly.

In such environments you learn very quickly how to say a lot without saying anything.

If you need more information take a look at channels such as [0] and [1]. There are plenty on youtube.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/user/CharismaMatrix

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/charismaoncommand

I completely agree with you. What I find interesting about this short thread branch however, is how the younger gens are so oblivious to the rudeness of being constantly engaged with your phone instead of the people you are immediately interacting with.

It's like common courtesy and human decency is eroding while at the same time people are caught up in this overly-virtuous mindset of "not offending anyone". The moral catch-22 of the 21st century.

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