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Missed Connection: Seat 8B

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Jeremy Toeman

The “missed connection” was invented by Craigslist as a way for two people who “met” somewhere, but were unable to actually exchange names, phone numbers, or emails. They tend to go a little something like this:

You were the cute Asian girl with a beer standing by the side of the stage. I wish I had introduced myself because think you were there by yourself. You caught me looking at you and smiled. Hopefully you’ll see this because I’d love to take you out for a drink.

I had an interesting moment last week on a flight, and I thought I’d do my own little “missed connection” despite the fact that I made no effort whatsoever to get any contact information from the individual at hand. But that’ll probably make more sense by the time you get to the end of this. I may even cross-post this on Craigslist, just for funsies.

United Flight xx, Seat 8B

You were the middle aged guy who pulled out your iPhone as we were on final descent. I was the guy sitting next to you who politely asked you to put it away while we landed. You may recall looking at me with disgust and putting your phone away while telling me to mind my own business. I did assert that it was “my business” since you were taking an action that put my life in jeopardy (well, maybe, but I’ll get to that later), and proceeded to loudly say “thank you” over and over at me until I raised my voice above you, and with a menacing glare said “you are welcome.” You turned away, probably realizing you weren’t really too sure about the guy a foot taller than you who looked like he had had enough of your childish behavior.

I was really quite surprised by the incident, especially considering I was polite, and asked you to turn it off while smiling. Since you were in business class with me, and sported the iPhone, I was under the assumption that you, like myself, might be a frequent business traveler. I was also surprised by your retort of “it’s in flight mode”, considering every flight you’ve ever flown has similarly had you turn off all electronic devices upon descent.

Now I think we are probably in the same boat: it seems so ridiculously unlikely that you and your cute little phone could possibly wreak havoc on an airplane. I mean really, how on Earth could that happen? Seems crazy. But yet, they have this annoying rule, and it’s imposed by the FAA, and well, I guess since I don’t work for the FAA and I don’t know all that much about landing planes myself that I’m going to follow that rule. I’ve even gone looking around the Internet for a “fact” to prove the FAA wrong, and, well, bummer, I couldn’t find one (although there’s a lively discussion a Mythbusters fan site and this article is good too). So until someone changes that rule or disproves the FAA, I’m going to keep following it, because, hey, knock on wood – it’s worked for me so far (100% landing rate, FTW)!

Which brings us around full circle to you – did you have an email you were waiting on that you felt was more important that, say, a safe landing? Again, even against infinitesimal odds it seems like there are very few emails that could be worth it, right? And even so, you’ve made it for almost 6 hours already, what could have happened in that last 4 minutes? Really, we were on the ground a mere 4 minutes later!

So I’ll end my letter to you, fine sir, with the request that you consider the world around you a bit more thoughtfully. I know you are clearly a Very Important Person because, after all, you do own an iPhone and sat in business class. You must be extremely busy with work, because you were willing to endanger us all just to see what emails may have arrived on a Friday night after work hours were done on this continent. I cannot stand on solid ground and assert for a fact that your phone would (or would not) cause any interference with the airplane’s landing systems – but then again, you cannot prove the opposite to be true, and all things considered, I’ll take my safety over your email any day of the week.

In short (too late), just stop being such a grade-A moron, the world already has enough of them.
<end of rant>

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Posted in That's Janky, Travel | Tags: flight, iphone, safety | 10 Comments |

About

Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

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