Conference Etiquette, Chapter I

Working for a statewide membership association, I suspect that I attend more conferences than the average person, and at those conferences I attend a lot of workshop presentations.

Almost without fail, the workshop presenter(s) begin his/her presentation with a request that the audience turn their cell phones off, or put them "on stun," or some other variation of "turn the damn ringer off, please."

And without fail, at some point during the workshop, a cell phone rings, and it is usually one with a particularly annoying ringtone.

I have a question for these people: what is your problem? Can it be possible that you really don't know that your cellphone ringer is on? Do you not care? Do you not understand the English language?

And another thing...what's with people who leave before a workshop session is over? OK, I get it...I understand that some are not as good as advertised or expected, but come on...we're talking about 75 minutes out of your life here. You can't suck it up? And where, exactly, do you have to go that's so important?

It's just rude, people...think about it.