Guy Talking On His Cell Phone at the Gym, it is not necessary to answer your cell phone just to tell someone that you can’t talk to them right now and that you’ll call them back later. There is a service - sometimes referred to as an answering service or “voice mail”- which will explain this situation to anyone who calls you and allow them to leave any pertinent information they have in a “recorded message.”
If you are answering your cell phone just to tell someone that you can’t talk to them right now because you are at the gym only because you really want people to know you’re at the gym, I feel 5 % amused and 5% sorry for you. What makes up the other 90% of my emotions? Anger that you are 20 inches from me and talking on your cell phone at the gym.
Guy Talking On His Cell Phone at the Gym, I understand from the business-like nature and frequency of your calls that you are probably a very important businessman, or at least would love to come off that way while on the elliptical machine at the gym.
May I offer you some advice on how you conduct your business? Perhaps you could use less horrifying and banal strings of business clichés, such as “I’ll have to pick his brain about that,” or “I’d just like to move forward with this project,” or “between you and me, money talks, my friend.” Perhaps you could also not remind whoever is on the line how serious and aggressive and powerful you are - it’s better to establish such traits subtly, through action and results.
And perhaps - and this is merely a suggestion - you could make your business calls before or after your paltry 25-minute elliptical workout, in which you don’t even lift weights afterward like I do. This way, your business partner or client would not have to hear you huffing and wheezing and panting in between words like a drowning pig coming up for air.
Guy Talking On His Cell Phone at the Gym, talking on your cell phone at the gym will not make your hair grow back, no matter how long and loud you talk.
Guy Talking On His Cell Phone at the Gym, your paltry 25-minute workout on the elliptical machine, in which you don’t even lift weights afterward like the rest of us, is made even less effective because one cannot properly both use a cardio machine and talk on the cell phone. I can often see your distance and calorie stats, GTOHCPATG, and even though you might think it is efficient to exercise and conduct vague, egotistical business at the same time, I’m guessing that you are doing neither activity well.
Guy Talking On His Cell Phone at the Gym, I thought it was really funny when you tried to send a text message while on the elliptical and was not sorry when you lost your balance and maybe hurt yourself a little. However, I’m not sure you learned your lesson about annoying multitasking and I secretly wish that you had fallen all the way off the machine. Then I could have looked down at you and said, “Text your friend about that!”
15 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link
http://sarahaswell.com/2007/11/14/dear-guy-talking-on-his-cell-phone-at-the-gym/trackback/
January 3, 2008 at 1:57 am
Pingback from January 2: The Annual Most Awkward Day At the Gym « BROOD
November 14, 2007 at 4:11 am
rebecca
did he at least clean the equipment when he was finished? Thats my biggest pet peeve at the gym. cuz i go to the gym.
November 14, 2007 at 4:13 am
Cat
It is funny just how many people use those phrases when talking on their phones.
But you are right, it’s most likely just to show that they are at the gym. I have too many friendstelling me in detail everytime they’re about to go to the gym..
Excellent post.
November 14, 2007 at 5:24 am
Laura
Yeah, and also, at my gym, why don’t they run the closed captioning on the tv instead of forcing me to watch Oprah in silence? “That’s a really gross looking vital internal organ Dr. Oz is holding up right now. I’m curious as to what that is and what I can do to prevent giving it cancer.” ‘Cause I go to the gym too ‘n stuff.
November 14, 2007 at 5:44 am
Courtney Sherwood
There’s a woman at my gym who has long conversations while on the treadmill. And a Japanese man who yells in Japanese at random intervals during every 30-minute run. It’s scary the first few times you see it, but eventually you start thinking, “Must be some strange cultural thing,” and it becomes only strange and amusing.
November 14, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Dana
Ha! Too funny. You should have suggested to him that he re-evaluate his current gym/phone strategy going forward, initiate a paradigm shift, and think outside the box in order to both increase his personal productivity, and enhance personal relations with his gym mates.
November 14, 2007 at 4:42 pm
pandorasblog
there is this one chick (actually many more than one chick but i am going to lump them all together to make it more funny) she wears those pants with adjectives across her butt cheeks.
she does the abductor (squeeze squeeze squeeze your way to shapely hips and thighs) machine and chews pink bubble gum while chatting on her sidekick.
she is only lifting one of those donut weights, all of 15 pounds, but she can still make pornographic faces while she does it.
she’s amazing…she’s multi-tasking…she’s JUICY!
maybe we should set them up on a ‘hands free date’…..
November 14, 2007 at 5:05 pm
millyonair
Ha ha ha! This post made me laugh out loud in the computer lab at school, another place where cell phones are in frequent inappropriate use!
Perhaps you should befriend the celliptical guy. Then you might suggest to him that if he REALLY wanted to impress his colleagues, he wold buy his OWN elliptical machine, and use it at his office. The benefits are threefold: 1.) It would demonstrate to his co-workers that he is successful enough for the company to compensate him with a salary that allows such extravagance, 2.)More people would be able to see that he’s dedicated to physical fitness (a fact he’s clearly proud of), including the hot babes in Accounting, and 3.)People like you would leave the gym feeling relaxed and/or energized instead of angry.
Thanks for the laugh!
November 14, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Ray
A few days ago, I was surprised when I heard somebody talking in the bus and the person he talked to was actually sitting opposite to him.
This leaves a strange feeling, if I recall the time I heard the first mobile phone ringing at the train sometime 1999(?).
Times change, I think.
November 14, 2007 at 7:53 pm
John
This dude is everywhere.
November 14, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Will
I’m going to have to try this. But I don’t want to actually go to the gym (it’s too far away), so I’ll just answer all calls with, “*grunt* Sorry, can’t talk, I’m blasting my deltoids.”
Or maybe, to show a softer side, “I’ll call you later, I’m feeding the homeless.”
November 14, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Beth from Avenue Z
There’s a distinctive gym sound that I dread. It’s the meat-hitting-butcher-table splat of fat thighs (mine) on the wet tile in the sauna.
And the sound I hate worse than fat thighs hitting wet tile? The sound of the repercussions of air being trapped under said thighs and releasing itself in a slow staccato. Even when one is innocent of wrongdoing, all one can do is cough.
Your post made me laugh aloud.
November 15, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Abhishek
OH such people can be really annoying i tell you…btw nice blog there!!
November 20, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Steve
This sort of reminded me of those guys who must find a way to mention that they play guitar or are in a band.
“Nice weather.”
“Yeah, glad it’s not raining. Rain isn’t good for guitar amplifiers, which I own and will be using tonight at my gig.”
If you encounter one, ask what kind of music he plays. He will invariably reply that it’s “hard to explain” because it’s so different from any music ever before conceived.
May 30, 2008 at 2:46 am
Hilary
Sarah, please tell me in all your copywriting and moving and yuppie fantasizing, you caught this article?
Inside Voice, Please, Even at the Gym