Tuesday, September 13, 2005

I got to wondering if anybody has addressed the issue of the "Lyndon Johnson" in cell phone etiquette. I think nobody has addressed it in these terms because I hope I am the first person to bring this up.
You are probably what wondering "what is a Lyndon Johnson?" and what does it have to do with my cell phone? I got this from a friend of mine who swears it was true of our former President. It seems that when LBJ ( that stands for Lyndon Baines Johnson for you young folks and trivia buffs) was President and he took a dislike to someone, he would meet with them when he was on the commode. He'd call them in right about time for a Presidential sit down, prop the door slightly ajar and conduct his meeting while doing number 2.
I got to studying about the "Lyndon Johnson" and how it pertains to cell phones. There are two kinds of "Lyndon Johnson's" for our discussion. First is the "unintentional" Lyndon Johnson. You are caught in the moment while doing your thing and the damn cell phone rings. You are struggling whether you should possibly breach etiquette and answer the damn thing (thus creating the unintentional LJ) or should you let it ring and go to the voice mail? If you like the person on the other end you might just let it ring. But if the caller has juicy gossip, the location of the WMDs or other pertinent info you may want to risk the breach of etiquette. However, if the person on the other end is Brutus to your Caesar then by all means give'em an unintentional LJ.

How about the intentional LJ? This is a special form of passive aggressive behavior and should be used in moderation. Let's say last week somebody ( not you!) totally fucked up some big case at work and you got the blame for it. You got reamed but good by your boss. You know he/she is mental midget with the cranial capacity of walnut and he/ she believes anybody but your sorry ass.
This week you know you have important info that the boss needs. When do ya give it to him? What do ya do? You get your cell phone and call him right in the middle of a good dump. Make it as noisy as you want. He may not ever catch on but you got the last laugh by giving him a Lyndon Johnson!