Welcome Wednesday: When is it OK to be on speakerphone?

[#1]

Howdy, Atlassian Community! 👋

It's time for another Welcome Wednesday post, a chance for you to participate on the Atlassian Community forums on topics that aren't necessarily about Atlassian tools. 🙃 (See past Welcome Wednesdays here.)

Me at a train station.

Imagine this:

I'm in a lounge, waiting for my next train. I'm listening to music (on headphones). 🎧

I eventually notice the person next to me is on a video call.

Clearly without headphones.

I take a moment to look at this person, then ask "You know you're on speakerphone, yeah?" Then I go back to listening to my music.

They looked slightly confused, but then carry on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My question: When is it okay to be on speakerphone? 😂

Is there ever a case? Make your case (either case, or both cases) in the comments!

[Ciara - _Eficode_]

Never in public! 

[Alex Nejako]

If you are in a private place, or in a hotel meeting room where you have controlled access, or in your home office.

One use case is if you are running a meeting in a large venue that has smaller private meeting rooms- you're not in your office, but you are in a controlled location with limited entry. Some major conferences will take the entire team out of the office during an event, but they often still need to run internal or client meetings.

You should have the door closed. It's not polite to use speakerphones for either personal or office calls in public and in most cases it probably breaks a company policy.

It's better to listen over your handset with the volume reasonable enough to hear, or on your earphones/earbuds.

[Varsha Joshi]

For work calls - never, unless your co-worker needs to participate in the call and it has to be a controlled environment like @Alex Nejako said.

For private calls - depends on who you are allowing to consume your information.

[Natalie Beiler]

My personal speaker phone rules:

• Private location (home, hotel room, car, office with door closed, etc.)
• Alone or with someone else who needs to participate
• Full disclosure to the person or persons on the other end of the call - "Are you OK if I use speaker phone?"

I find it best to be considerate of others and coming from a Healthcare background, I am very sensitive to privacy concerns.

Great question @Dave LIAO 

[Matt Doar]

When everyone around you wants to hear what is being said. Otherwise, never.

And don't hold your phone flat either, that just looks goofy

[Amanda Barber]

Some people just need to find that perfect pair of headphones to change their life (and the lives of those around them...) 🤪🎧

[Reiner]

Using a speakerphones in public is never acceptable if others can hear it or are disturbed by it. The only exception might be a medical emergency, such as when I’m performing CPR and receive guidance from a 911 operator while emergency services are being dispatched.

[Rebekka Heilmann _viadee_]

I was going to say, absolutely never. But as a First Aid Instructor I like @Reiner's exception very much :)

[Jimmy Seddon]

HAHAHA! @Dave LIAO I LOVE this question.  I agree with everyone here, so I'm going to provide my intrusive thought answer. that I never have the guts to act on:

Anyone who thinks it's acceptable to be on speaker phone in a public setting (with the exception of an emergency) is inviting everyone around them to be an active participant in the conversation ;)

[Sean Perry]

Being on speaker phone in a public setting (with the exception of an emergency situations) is for me both rude, but an invasion of everyone else's space. Noise pollution from speakerphone use is a growing modern epidemic. It transforms shared spaces into sources of sensory overload and anxiety, Be mindful of everyone else, a pair of wired headphones are extremely cheap nowadays - use them 🎧! 

[Barbara Szczesniak]

My 84-year-old dad uses speakerphone all the time because he has trouble hearing and someone else in the room can help him out. Of course, he doesn't know how to swipe to answer a call on his cell phone, let alone how to turn on speaker, so we don't need to worry about him doing this in public.

For work, I work from home, always close the door, and only do speaker when it's a one-on-one call/meeting; otherwise, I use my headset so I can mute myself and any background noise (like my dad on speaker in another room 😀) when I'm not speaking. 

I probably never will, but I am tempted to accept the invitation to participate in a rude person's public conversation, @Jimmy Seddon!

[Darryl Lee]

Yeah @Dave LIAO I'm with @Jimmy Seddon - you should've joined in on the call.

Or at the very least start talking out loud about the gory details of your latest visit to the orthodontist.

Or spoilers for all the latest movies.

Or maybe just narrate what's happening:

"So you wouldn't believe it, but there's a guy in the lounge taking a videocall while on his speakerphone. No like, I can hear everything they're talking about! Oh, confidential? I don't know maybe. Company secrets? Private details? Hold on, yeah, I can still hear them, let me get out my keyboard and take some notes."

(But no, I probably wouldn't do this.)

[Bill Sheboy]

Yes, and...agreeing with the ideas why this practice is not respectful to other nearby people.  One could try shouting out, within their phone's range:

hey, Siri...<insert request you would not want Siri to answer if someone shouted it to your phone>

Regarding using speakerphones in emergency situations, one person's short-on-time is another's "emergency", unfortunately.  I recall seeing people in grocery stores using divide-and-conquer to speed their shopping.  That is, each person would grab a cart, call the other on speakerphone, drop their phone into the cart, and call out to one another from different store locations which items they had gathered to coordinate.  Perhaps they thought they were following their local jurisdiction's hands-free laws when operating a vehicle.  (sigh)