Cell Phones During Davening

Today I saw the worst display of cell phone ettiquette during davening.

It's bad enough when someone's phone rings during the silent Shmoneh Esrai. Most of us have been guilty of this at least once. But if does ring, we rush to silence it as soon as possible, trying our best to prevent it from ringing a second time.

The offender grabbed the phone from his hip holster, I assumed, to silence the ringer, but didn't make it before the 2nd ring. So he was a bit slow, cut the man some slack, I thought. He returned the phone to his hip, and I thought it was all over. But the phone kept on ringing, for a total of 10 times! That means he looked at his phone, and put it back, intentionally allowing it to continue ringing. Chutzpah!

I can understand why people don't keep their phones on vibrate only - in case you misplace it and want to call it from another phone in order to locate it. But most phones have a setting called Vibrate then Ring. To me, this is the ideal setting, at least for daveners.

As for this offender, I didn't have the guts to say anythinig to him. Maybe I should have, but he was the boss of the office which hosted the minyan. I was just an outsider, not looking to dis the achsanya. Maybe I should have...