[slow&rusty]

So I have to rant and vent guys!!

I work for an Engineering Firm with some young engineering grads in the 25-30yr old age range.

During the day they have their I-pods hooked on just about the loudest volume setting and they rather be in their own world jamming than interact and be a part of the activities around them with the other members of staff.

During the day they are ALWAYS texting...and I mean ALWAYS texting.

It came to an annoyance yesterday where 5 of us from the office went to meet a new client for a project and our junior electrical engineer was present but during the meeting duration was texting a considerable amount of time on her i-phone under the table. I noticed it and our Senior Project Manager noticed it and we felt it was unprofessional, a poor reflection and not the impression we wanted to leave, she was the only one at the table of 10 people texting and ironically the youngest there.

As we chatted about it today, I felt that the younger generation (and alot of people in generation) have become slaves to their smart phones and any little chime or buzz that goes off indicating a new text or email coming in, they have to correspond right away, such that they let these little devices run their lives. Really do you have that many friends..or is everything that urgent that you have to respond right away with a "LOL".."OMG".."GTFO"...etc

I went on to state, that we get in the elevator (I work in a fairly tall building in Houston) and the first thing everyone does is grab their phones and scroll through whatever they are scrolling or thumbing through...they then stay asphyxiated to their phone as they walk from the elevator to the parking garage.

Gone are the days where we make friendly conversation, eye contact or interact with people at a human level. Go to a restaurant or park or a social spot same thing...these little 3" long devices have taken over their lives!

Get this...my sister is a Psychologist and is now counselling (married) couples who are fighting domestically while texting each other and sitting 2 feet from each other!!!...They don't make eye contact..there is no raised voices all the fighting is done via a text...society has become delinquent!

Back to my point...If I was the office manager, I would ban:
1) Access to Facebook during company time
2) Really watch how much people text during the day and call them out on it
3) I-Pods...we strive and push a Team Environment and we have an open office concept, how can you do that if someone is jamming away on their I-Pods closed to the world around them?

Ironically and here is the kicker these young texting, i-pod jamming, i-phone slave engineers are pretty sharp technically.

Rant over!
Your thoughts?
I love technology, I love jamming to my tunes and I am still in my 30s, so it is not like I am old codger!
Ok gotta go..someone just sent me a text...
Yasin