Has An Inappropriate Ringtone Ever Embarrassed You?
by Eric Zeman

Raise your hand if you have a specialized ringtone set on your phone. Now raise your hand if you haven't bothered to switch your mobile phone's ringer from the default ringer it came with out of the box. Lastly, raise your hand if you keep your phone on vibrate or silent most of the time. According to the Washington Post, most pols fall into the latter camp in order to avoid creating an international incident.

You know you've been there. A business meeting. A seminar. A movie. Someone's phone goes off with the theme from "Gone With the Wind", the "Macarena" or some other highly inappropriate song at full volume and disrupts or disturbs the meeting. Mine was set to "Eruption" by Van Halen for quite some time. Yes, I fully admit to disturbing the peace with my device on more than one occasion.

While cell phone etiquette is an issue all by itself, Washington Post writer Mike Musgrove took an unofficial poll of D.C. pols to find out what ringtones they were using. While Rudy Guiliani uses a default ringer and both President Bush and Vice President Cheney don't carry cell phones, Musgrove was able to determine that many in D.C. opt for the vibrate or silent settings. This makes sense. You never know what songs are going to offend people. And politicians, by nature, generally wish to avoid anything that might cause themselves embarrassment, like having "The Electric Slide" or a moantone suddenly start blaring from their pocket.

I've been a user of the vibrate setting myself for a while now. Let us know what your experiences have been. Do you hear silly songs from your coworkers' offices? What about your boss? Share your worst ringtone nightmare!