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[quote=Anonymous]Am I in the wrong?  A colleague came to me today and told me he was offended by my behavior in a meeting last week.  He is not someone I work with often, I'm very senior to him, and he's somewhat older (mid 60s or so).  He said that he did not appreciate that I was on my iphone during a cross-department meeting we had last week.  He was very polite about it and felt he should share that he thought it was rude behavior.  Granted, yes, I am on my phone a lot, almost always work-related.  In that particular meeting, I was using the phone to pull up some data and research for the discussion at hand, referred to it during discussion, and was fully-engaged and participated throughout the meeting.   Frankly, I am in meetings about 70% of the time at work and if I don't keep tabs on email, I can easily end up with hundreds of unanswered emails a day, particularly if I don't handle some things asap when I can catch things before they escalate.  Obviously, the volume of email at my job and the scope of my responsibilities is another matter.  However, I don't want to make excuses if I'm truly out of touch with office norms.  I've worked in the company for several years, he has as well, and I am certainly not the only one who brings a phone or tablet to most meetings, particularly at my level.

When this colleague came to me, he actually gave me a list of rules he shares with a volunteer committee he leads, the first rule being related to no computers/phones/tablets in meetings.  Funny enough, I am also in our volunteer board meetings (I work for a non-profit) and every person in the room is on a computer throughout the days-long meeting.  So, I wonder if this is a generational thing and he hasn't realized times are changing.  I can't imagine not having access throughout the majority my day, but obviously people survived before email and phones and internet, etc.   [/quote]

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