Ever wondered what your cellphone ringtone may reveal about you? Just like any other aspect of your personality, your choice of ringtone can say a lot about you. When your ringtone plays in the office or in a meeting, it has the potential to have you fired.
A Little History of Ringtones
Ringtones have been popular since a little more than a decade now. Though many people prefer to keep their phones on silent or vibration mode, ringtones continue to be popular. 50% of cell phone users have downloaded a ringtone at least once. Earlier the ringtones used to be very simple and have improved in quality as well as quantity over the years.
Show Them Your Etiquettes
No matter which ringtone you select, it is important that you keep it on low volume during office hours. Repeated ringing of your phone on high volume will disturb all the people working around you. If your job requires you to receive a lot of calls on your cell phone, you can easily use a wireless earphone so that only you hear the phone ring.
A sign of Insincerity Towards Work
If you have a latest and fashionable ringtone, you may enjoy it, every time it rings but do not assume the same for your colleagues. In fact, they have the right to complain and report this incident as a disturbance and you might end up losing your job. Phone ringing in middle of a meeting or discussion is clearly bad etiquette and should be avoided at all costs. It can unnecessarily leave the impression of you being a careless person whose mind is everywhere except where it should be – at work.
Keeping Your Neighbors in Mind
You might be working at a place where ringtones are welcome, ignored or are a refreshing change from the monotony. This sounds great because then you can select any ringtone of your choice and listen to it every time someone calls. Not true! You must remember that you are still at your workplace and every sound you make is audible to your neighbors.
Watch Out for the Lyrics!
There are many ringtones available for free that use racist, abusive or otherwise offensive words. You may not even notice them, but someone might get deeply offended. If your selection of ringtone is thought of as intentional, action might be taken as per policy of your organization. It is not always necessary to keep your phone on silent mode but do check the lyrics for words that might offend people. It is best to keep an instrumental music that is soothing to the ears and let the volume ascend with time.
Ringtones are great but they need to be appropriate for the place you are at. At work, make sure that they go with the ambience and do not disturb those near you. When selected appropriately, your ringtone can set the right mood and bring a refreshing change during work hours. You can always select the other favorite ringtones for home.
