(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
Personal Calls During Business Hours May Be Sent to Voicemail
DEAR MISS MANNERS: In today's age of constant contact with our ever-present phones, what's the appropriate response when a friend with an alternative schedule (for instance, working in another time zone) contacts me during work hours on my personal cell?
I feel awkward ignoring their calls, but also feel perturbed that they do not appreciate that I work standard business hours.
I received a mid-afternoon call on a Monday from a friend who informed me that now was a good time for him to return my Sunday call, but unfortunately, I was working and wasn't available for a long chat. I felt rude but confused as to how I should have handled it.
I am salaried and could take the call and leave work later, but also feel that it is unprofessional and keeps me "on call" around others' schedules. I would appreciate your advice on texts of a similar nature: It seems not responding immediately to texts is now considered rude!
GENTLE READER: Because technology has made it so that everyone is immediately reachable does not, Miss Manners assures you, mean that humans have to follow suit.
Since it is so commonplace for people to turn off their ringers, it is likely that no one pays attention to the time that they are calling anymore. But that does not mean you have to answer it.
If it makes you feel better to blame it on technology, then do it fully. Leave an outgoing voicemail message (or text equivalent) that states your business hours and when you will be able to reasonably return calls. You may find that your devices end up talking to one another for a while, but at least your job security -- and general sanity level -- will be safe.
Miss Manners for March 15, 2019
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter just got married in a small ceremony, and a group of about 20 friends and family went to dinner after, which I had arranged. The groom's parents offered to pay half the bill, which wasn't a problem -- but their credit card was declined.
As I was the one the wait staff was dealing with, I simply paid the entire bill and handed the declined card back, while saying, "It's all settled."
Was I wrong to not give them a chance to pay a different way? I assume they'll figure out eventually that they weren't charged, and if they insist on paying me back, they'll figure out a way to do it. But my main concern was avoiding embarrassing them in that celebratory moment.
GENTLE READER: Which was tactful. Miss Manners assures you that it also would not have been remiss to have taken one of the other parents discreetly aside to explain the situation. Cards may be declined for reasons other than fraud.
But if you were in a position to be generous without making a show of it -- or insisting on immediate payback -- it bodes well for the future of the relationship. Or -- if it becomes a habit -- its complete and utter demise.
Locate Stinky Litter Boxes as Far From Guests as Possible
DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have two cats, a Siamese and an orange tabby, both about 2 years old. When the orange tabby uses her litter box, well, it's just pungent and disgustingly smelly. My husband just sits there and says when you have pets they come with smells.
I beg to differ, and what if we had company over? What's the proper etiquette in these matters? I await your reply because I think leaving it, even after one use with fresh litter, is one too many. I think he's trying to gaslight me and he's just being lazy.
GENTLE READER: Your husband's observation that pets come with smells is accurate but lazy -- by which Miss Manners means unhelpful. So do people, but we do not therefore conclude that all activities are open to public viewing.
Bathroom facilities for the pets should be kept out of range of visitors, meaning nowhere the two will come into close or sustained contact, olfactory or otherwise. Within the family, agreement must be reached, with understanding and preference given to more sensitive members.
Miss Manners for March 14, 2019
DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I hosted a large event a couple of months ago, the food was catered, but I supplied the liquor, including two very expensive bottles of brandy, with the proviso that I would take home the remaining liquor at the end of the evening. I spoke to the hired bartenders before the guests arrived to confirm this.
At the end of the evening, after most of the guests had left, I went to the bar to assist the bartenders in packing up the liquor, and was surprised to find that both bottles of brandy were missing. The bartenders told me that they had not been emptied by the guests. The manager of the facility, which has excellent surveillance cameras, pulled the video of the bar area, and it showed that one of my dearest friends had taken both bottles. How do I -- or should I -- address this with my now soon-to-be-former "friend"?
GENTLE READER: Your sticky-fingered friend clearly does not share your (or Miss Manners') ideas about polite behavior. But you do have one thing in common: You are both in possession of guilty information, even if you, unlike your friend, have nothing with which to wash away the unpleasant taste left by such knowledge.
Commercial establishments routinely, and often understandably, install surveillance equipment, sometimes to protect their patrons and always to protect themselves. But your spying on your friends -- even your guilty ones -- is not polite.
How, then, to correct the problem without admitting your own, lesser, transgression? Your first option is to admit the knowledge, but obfuscate how you came by it. "The establishment tells me you saved the brandies for me. Thank you so much! When can I come by to pick them up?"
Being more confrontational, this approach is more likely to go wrong, particularly if your friend has already disposed of the incriminating evidence. A gentler approach is to talk fondly of the party to your friend at the next social event, mentioning that your only disappointment was that the bartender told you that someone helped themselves to the bottles that you were hoping to share with your guests. This is unlikely to get your brandy back, but it may ruin the thief's day.
Miss Manners for March 14, 2019
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
Subtle Message Should Get Dog Sitter Back on the Job
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have one of those camera doorbells on my front door. Consequently, I can see the comings and goings of a good friend of mine who walks my dogs a few times a week while I'm at work (she has a key to my house; the camera detects motion and begins to record and sends a live feed to my phone).
The trouble is that she doesn't always walk my dogs. I know this because the doorbell camera doesn't show her doing so. She comes over but just hangs out. Sometimes she does homework, using my printer and Wi-Fi for assignments, and sometimes she does laundry (I've freely offered these things to her).
I am paying her to walk my dogs when she does come over, as she's going through a rough patch financially. I trust her in my home; I just think she gets a little lazy and I feel taken advantage of.
I know it sounds sheepish, but I don't know how to say anything to her about this. I don't want her to think I'm spying on her with the camera, but I also don't want to pay her to come over for an hour for her own purposes.
GENTLE READER: The term "early adopter" is, to Miss Manners' thinking, a triumph of marketing over common sense. We used to use less flattering terms to describe people who buy things they know are not going to work. But it does provide an important outlet for etiquette: No one is surprised when told that a new, expensive gadget is unreliable.
Your doorbell camera may be the perfection of safety, convenience and reliability, but your friend does not know this. You can therefore express to her your frustration with your new gadget: It must be broken because it did not capture her walking the dogs all last week -- and you're confident that she must have.
Having said this, it is time to beat a hasty retreat -- to a different topic or a different room -- as the purpose is to warn your friend what you know, not to put her on the spot for a defense. Etiquette calls this technique "the dog ate my video."
Miss Manners for March 13, 2019
DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my daughter was married, they invited close family and their good friends -- well, some good friends. A few of my daughter's friends work with the ex-wife. They received no card or gift from this trio. She feels they have been manipulated by the "X."
1. Should she not send a thank-you note to them?
2. Should she just send a thank-you card, thanking them for attending and celebrating?
3. Should she send a card thanking them for attending -- with a P.S.: "I fear your card/gift was lost" or something of that nature? She does not value the friendship of these three ladies, and shame on them for their lack of class and manners. What should she do?
GENTLE READER: 4. Enjoy her honeymoon and spend her time thinking of more pleasant things. Miss Manners is as perplexed by what you consider the three ladies to have done wrong as she is by your proposed solutions. Etiquette does not require that guests give gifts, nor does it require a host to thank a guest for attending. And it certainly prohibits soliciting gifts.
Miss Manners for March 13, 2019
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)