[SampleMan]

But he might drive it to the theater.

No one cares that you own a Blackberry, laptop, or electronic You Sunk My Battleship. Just to your using them in the theater next to them.

I'm sure they would be just as annoyed if you used a stock ticker or carrier pigeons. If your job is too important for you to be unavailable for 2.5 hours then you need to be available. You are getting paid to be on call 24/7, the guy next to you in the "darkened" theater isn't. In fact he's paying to be in a "darkened" theater.

Perhaps the solution is to offer to pay your fellow theater goers to be on call with you.

[CindyDawg]

What I find amazing is that you guys get paid to be on call. It's considered part of our job description that is worked into our salary. If I was on the clock, I might not hate carrying the annoyance box so much:')

[Shalom Israel]

Perhaps the solution is to offer to pay your fellow theater goers to be on call with you.

Yup. Or to convince the owner to designate one of his theaters "phone conversation optional". The market will decide whether that's a good idea, of course.