Topic 76: Telephone Manners

Carol:

Call Waiting   

    
 I don’t like talking on the phone, not since my mother gave me an egg-timer to minimize talk time. I usually spent hours on the phone with friends who I had already spent hours with at school.  Until we got the egg-timer.   My mother’s rules were mostly about good manners when answering the call or taking and leaving messages. The egg- timer was to remind me that it was rude to keep the line tied up when someone might be calling other members of the family.  Since 99% of the calls were for me anyway, I didn’t really see the point. I was just being rude to myself, then, right?
 

When I went away to College, long distance was expensive and inconvenient.  Sunday evenings at the dorm, I would stand in line behind all the other girls, keeping a courteous distance from the wall phone that was not in a booth.  I didn’t need an egg-timer to make it brief. The body language of the next person in line did the job. The year I lived in France, no phone calls. Too expensive and too complicated,  not to mention the weird telephones and operators who couldn’t understand your accent.  My final year of college, we actually had our own phones in the dorm rooms.  Who would think that someone who hated to talk on the phone could rack up a $150 phone bill the first month? Let’s just say, I learned quickly to adopt the egg-timer approach to telephone conversations and to pay my part of the bill on time.
 

I really got to hate talking on the phone when I started work.  It began with the temp job Marc got me at a Palm Springs law office where he was working for the summer. I was instructed to lie to callers when a lawyer wanted to avoid a client. So, I was saying “I’m sorry, Mr. Law is in court on a big case, but I’ll see that he gets your message, “but I was thinking “I’m sorry, Mr. Law wants to avoid talking to you as long as possible, at least until he finishes another few cups of coffee.”   My next job required more advanced skills related to hitting the correct buttons in the correct sequence so as not to disconnect, interrupt or forget people at the four different phone numbers. My general ineptitude was offset by really polite phone manners.  “I’m sorry, Professor Yale, that I cut you off again.  Please hold while I try to get Dr. Harvard back on the line.” 
 

 Changing telephone technology calls for new rules of etiquette.  We don’t need egg timers around here because we all have our own cell phones and personal numbers. Our land line has caller ID and voice mail, so I don’t even have to answer the phone if I don’t feel like talking. No Call Waiting—bad manners.
 

 Regarding cell phones, my rules are simple: never talk loudly in public, don’t drive and talk, return voice messages promptly. Yesterday, my cell phone died on me…from under-use. After I recharged it, a message popped up on the screen. The message was from my husband (I do know how to retrieve voice mail)  from September.  He should know by now that I don’t like to talk on the phone.

Megan:

Telephone Manners

I really enjoy the topics on manners because they allow me to recycle older essays and adapt my three Golden Rules of Etiquette to almost any situation where politeness is required. Quick review of the Rules as they were applied to company and ancestors:

Be Clean
Accept Food or Drink
Do not overstay your welcome.

How can these be applied to the phone, you ask? Well, some of it is common sense, and some of it is quite a stretch, but I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m too tired to come up with new rules. Plus there are tons of normal guides online, especially concerning when and where it is appropriate to use mobile phones. Let’s not rehash that here.  

Be Clean:
The other day, the phone rang. Person A (names have been changed to protect the guilty) answered the phone and then shouted for Person B. “Person B, it’s for you.” 

To which Person B shouted back, “I’m on the toilet.”
Person A: “So what should I do?”
Person B: “Pass it around the door.”  

This all went on without covering the mouth part, or muting the phone so the caller must have been horrified to hear what he was getting in for. But just in case he hadn’t heard, Person B flushed while still on the phone.
People, as convenient as it may seem, don’t talk on the phone while you are on the toilet. Not every call has to be taken immediately. That is why God invented Caller ID, Voicemail, and little pads of paper upon which can be inscribed the details of a message.

Except Food or Drink (haha, see what I did there? It’s a pun.):
Most phone etiquette guides will tell you that talking on your cell phone in a restaurant is a no-no (same goes for toilet talk). I propose we go a step further and don’t talk on the phone while eating at all. There’s a reason it's rude to talk with your mouth full, and it’s not just because everyone can see your chewed up food. It’s also much harder to understand you, doubly so over the phone because reading lips and facial expressions is impossible.
Also, it’s not nice for the caller to hear the crunching and chewing sounds amplified and projected directly into the ear. 

Do not overstay your welcome:
Some people don’t like to talk on the phone, and others are content to do it for hours. This can make getting off the phone tricky.  In this house, Person A really hates using the phone. She hates it so much that when she has finished what she has to say, she sometimes overrides the caller with “Ok, nice talking to you, I’ll let you go” and then hangs up without hearing the other person.  She did this to me while I was in England a lot, but I just called back again and was like, ”Dude. There’s a reason I was calling.” It’s less important to be polite to your parents.

When I run out of things to say, and so has the person I am talking to, there can often be an awkward silence. I’ve learned it is easier not to pussyfoot around with “Umms” and “Uhhs” and “How is your family?” for the 5th time. Instead, I just get to the blunted point: “I don’t have anything left to say.”
Other person: “I guess… neither do I.”
Me: “Good phone call.”
Other person: “Um… what?”
Me: “Bye.”

Topic 57: Etiquette for Ancestors

Carol:

We Gather Together

The feast of Thanksgiving fast approaches, which shall be commemorated as ordered by our President Lincoln in his proclamation of October 3 in this year of our Lord, 1863,

           I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States,
           and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign
           lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a
           day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in
           the Heavens. (Source: Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln, October 3,
          1863)

Thanksgiving, Civil War Camp, 1861

 As much as we  sorrow at the continuing strife of this tragic War, we gather at table to praise the courage of our Pilgrim ancestors who arrived as weary strangers upon this great country’s eastern shores. We give Thanks as humble servants of our Lord by sharing our abundance with both kin and stranger, neighbor and wayfarer. In order to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of our forefathers and our Faith, we must remember that, as we have been taught that “cleanliness is next to Godliness,” so we may say the same about comportment. We have only to follow the guidance of two books on our library shelf, the Holy Bible and George Winfred Hervey’s  The Principles of Courtesy: with Hints and Observations of Manners and Habits (1856).
 

First, let us put into mind that Honor takes precedence above other rules of comportment when we welcome others into our home. Mr. Hervey directs us to serve our guests as determined by their “title, birth, rank in profession, age, sex. marriage, and hospitality” (197).  
 

How, then, does Mr. Hervey guide us in honoring our Thanksgiving guests? The stranger takes precedence over all others. We follow Biblical teachings when we offer service to wayfarers:  first at table, first in respect. Hebrews 13:2   ”Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” As our own ancestors were “strangers in a strange land,”  immigrants filled with both trepidation and hope, we extend courtesy to those who may be far from home, praying in turn that our kin who are far from us receive the same hospitality.

We then look to age as the precedent. Mr. Hervey would remind us to be careful not to offend:  “None but the very aged ladies, however, are to be offered the precedence in virtue of their years” (197). Among our younger guests, the ladies take precedence, and the married over the single. In the case of the gentlemen, rank is afforded the man of letters over the man of industry according to “the laws of precedence” (198).

Once we are seated at table, we choose our words to  avoid gossip and controversy. Unpleasant, coarse or unduly intellectual topics are not only rude when both Ladies and Gentlemen are present, but they are harmful to the digestion. Silence shall be maintained both during and after the Blessing. After a respectful pause, humility and restraint in conversation shall prevail.

Should you wish further guidance on choosing polite conversation topics and maintaining rhetorical decorum, I recommend  another of George Winfred Hervey’s  popular books, Rhetoric of Conversation: or, Bridles & Spurs for the Management of the Tongue (1854).

As we gather together this Thursday, whether as a stranger at someone else’s table or as the host to friends and family, we should all be mindful that Pilgrim Brewster, President Lincoln, and Mr. Hervey would all concur that we can best be guided  in our comportment, indeed in all our affairs, by the simple words of the childhood hymn, “Be Ye Kind to One Another.”

Sources:
 
Hervey, George Winfred. The principles of courtesy: with hints and observations on manners and habits. Harper & Brothers:1856. Making of America Books.
  

Megan:

Etiquette for Ancestors: A Guide to (Polite) Haunting  

When haunting the home of your descendants, a ghost (or spirit, phantom, shade, soul or specter – however you like to think of yourself) should adhere to the same three rules you followed when alive and visiting relatives. Just because you are dead, there is no excuse to be rude.

1.    Stay clean
Poltergeists are the most destructive and least welcome spiritual guests. If you’re constantly breaking things and scaring the children, there’s a good chance that your beloved family will either move or get someone in to perform an exorcism. So, don’t break stuff, and put things back where you find them. When you’re a guest, living or dead, it’s best to be as unobtrusive as possible.

2.    Accept drinks/food
Yes, I know you’re dead and you can’t technically eat, but that hasn’t stopped people from leaving food and drink as offerings for the ancestors for thousands of years.  This tradition is common in cultures around the world. Mexicans have the Dia de los Muertos. Filipinos, Koreans, Japanese, Nepalese, Chinese and some African tribes all observe similar traditions and leave food as an offering for their dead ancestors. As with their living guests, this is a sign of hospitality, in addition to honoring you for the gift of life.

3.    Do not overstay your welcome.
The final rule is very important. There is no preset time limit to haunting the house of your descendent. Following the previous rules may enhance everyone’s experience and enable the visit to be extended. It depends on the goal of the visit. If you are there simply to observe and are undetected, then you can stay as long as you want. If it’s a more interactive visit, then it depends on how happy your descendents are to see (hear, smell, touch) you. Some living people are comfortable with the idea of an open border with the spirit world, but others are more conservative. They may appreciate you giving them a hand during the grieving process, helping them find the will or the money buried under the porch, but in the end, they may prefer to meet you on the other side. 

It goes without saying that once your descendents have vacated a property, it is not appropriate to continue to haunt it. It’s not your home; you have no legal claim to it. Again, such behavior may lead the occupants to move or call in the exorcist. No one this side really knows what that entails, but it’s an awkward and unpleasant experience for everyone involved. But if you follow those three simple rules, then you may met with welcome rather than annoyance, or fear.

Topic 32: Company Manners

Carol:

Minding Our Peas and Queues

“Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use."(Emily Post)

Emily Post

Raise your hand if you have heard of Emily Post. Anyone? Anyone? I suspect this best-selling author is no longer a household name, but when I was growing up, Post was the touchstone for appropriate behavior in any situation, in other words good manners. There really wasn’t a distinction drawn between good manners in private and good manners in public, as I recall, but my mother wanted to make sure I went out into the world well-prepared for any situation, so she gave me Emily Post’s book on manners as a high school graduation gift, a hefty 800 pages of rules for life. It was the umpteenth version of a book simply called Etiquette that Post had first published in 1922.

People may think of etiquette as an endless series of old-fashioned, stuffy rules of behavior, anachronistic in the 21st century. Certainly, that impression is reinforced by  the 1869   Frost's Laws and by-laws of American society: a condensed but thorough treatise on etiquette and its usages in America, containing plain and reliable directions for deportment in every situation in life. Quite a mouthful of a title. In her introduction, Sarah Annie Frost notes that  rules of comportment are based on the principles of comfort and convenience;  disconnected from those values, rules of behavior achieve the opposite effect and “must inevitably produce discomfort and extravagance of behavior” (9). I don’t think Frost would argue at all with Emily Post’s use of the phrase “sensitivity to the needs of others” as a broad definition of the word “etiquette.”

This idea of the spirit or values behind the rules sometimes gets lost when we look only at the minutia of social situations: how to set a table, going through a receiving line  at a wedding, what to bring the hostess at a dinner party. But Frost, Post and other etiquette writers also provide rules for handling grief and loss. In a 2008 review of Laura Claridge’s book Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners, Azra Raza comments that she was surprised at the inappropriate and awkward responses of family and friends when her husband died, and that Post felt it it is exactly at such moments of intense emotion that “etiquette performs its most vital and real service” (qtd in Azra).

So, is the art of etiquette on the outs? Is Emily Post a has-been? In actuality, Emily Post has become a family business, and in 1946 Post and son Ned founded The Emily Post Institute, which now has a home on the web at emilypost.com   No less than seven family members are directors, authors, and speakers for The Emily Post Institute. And, the website includes an interactive “Etipedia” with the latest “company manners” related to instant messaging, tweeting, and social networking. 

My niece came for a quick visit last week with her two toddlers, and we enjoyed a multi-generational family meal. They may not know who Emily Post is, but the first rules of “company manners” are already in place: no farting, no farting talk, no burping, and… what do we say? Anyone? Anyone? PLEASE pass the potatoes. THANK YOU.


Sources:
Emily Post Institute
Sarah Annie Frost
Raza, Azra. “RX: Emily Post and Laura Claridge: Two Women Possessing the Genius of Etiquette (book review)
               

Megan:

Two common interpretations of this topic apply to how one acts when one either has a guest or is a guest.  There are a number of rules of etiquette applicable to both, but I have to confess that although I am aware of these rules, I hardly ever remember to follow them. There are reasons for this, but first, let us examine some of the rules of hospitality required of hosts and guests.

If you have a guest:                             If you are a guest:

Be clean                                                 Stay clean
Offer drinks/food                                    Accept drinks/food
Do not fight with spouse/partner            Do not overstay your welcome

Now I will go through each of these rules, and explain where I have fallen down in the past.

If I know that guests are expected, then of course I clean the house. But I discovered while I was living alone that keeping a tidy house is not actually my natural state. In England, people had a habit of dropping by unannounced, which is something I actively discouraged. I made it known that I needed at least an hour’s notice, or one would not be admitted.  I think I inherited this personality quirk from my grandmother.

As a guest, keeping the house clean is somewhat easier. You make the bed, help with dishes and try not to be sick in the bathroom. It’s the last one I have the most problems with – I can’t count how many times I have had food poisoning or nasty migraine headaches while staying with friends. Getting sick in someone else’s house is pretty much my worst nightmare, and it happens to me all the time.

Offering and accepting food and drinks is not something I’m very good at. In England, the first thing anyone does when you walk into their house, or their office (or the library) is say, “Shall I put the kettle on?” and offer a cup of tea. I never remembered to do this, mostly because I don’t drink tea. Or coffee. Unless it’s offered to me.

                        
And then only sometimes. The reason I have a hard time accepting food or drink, is that I have a slightly codependent streak that doesn’t want anyone to go to any trouble. This is the only situation where that comes up (as it obviously doesn’t cause me to compulsively offer refreshments in return). But if anyone offers me a drink or food, my first instinct is always to say no. I just can’t help it. I think I get this from my grandmother as well.

Finally, there is not fighting with spouse/partner and not overstaying your welcome. I don’t have a partner, nor do I remember ever fighting publicly when I did. But I have witnessed this behavior as a guest, and it made me uncomfortable. 

But not uncomfortable enough to leave. I am a super-over-stayer (made-up-word!!). I have reasons for this too. While living abroad, I would sometimes go years without seeing some of my friends, and when we did get together I made the most of it. So, if I haven’t seen you for a few years, and it took me 3 days to drive to your house, I don’t care if you are getting divorced in front of my face, I am staying.

After all, who knows if I’ll ever be invited back.

Topic 31: On Stepping Aside

Carol:

Deal Me Out

   

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.        --Kenny Rogers “The Gambler”

I’m going to Las Vegas today, so my mind has been on gambling images. I have been to Las Vegas many times, always for education conferences. This time, I am going along for the fun of it while my husband goes to a professional conference. Because…. I am retired. I loved teaching, and I loved my job, but I was ready to retire, really ready. Thanks to an experimental “phased retirement option,” I had three years of half-time teaching to make the transition to a different kind of life and different kind of pace. I get up every morning excited to start my routine that now includes reading and writing for pleasure instead of work. Most people don’t have the luxury of choosing how and when they will retire, my own father being such an example.

Ed Scott, Alaska 1937

Ed Scott graduated from UCLA in 1932 in the middle of the Depression with a degree in geology.  He was lucky to find a job, and he was lucky to get one that he loved. Being a field geologist in the 30’s was an adventure; he kept a suitcase packed and never went on a trip without his rock pick. His first  summer at Union Oil  in 1933, he rode the countryside around Santa Barbara on horseback taking notes to turn into geological survey maps. He spent six months in the late 30’s in Alaska, camping and riding Kodiak Island doing “exploration research.” He was exploring the coast of British Honduras (now Belize) in the spring of 1970 when a plane dropped off the message that his mother died. He was carrying that rock pick in his luggage when he came home from the funeral.
Ed worked for the same company, Union Oil for 45 years. He watched the company and the industry change dramatically during that time span. As late as the 1950’s, Union Oil still felt like a small family, and it cultivated loyalty through old-fashioned family picnics and holiday gatherings at the home of its then president, Cy Rubel. Corporate restructuring and mergers changed that. By the time he retired in 1974, Ed was “Manager of Exploration Research,” and he told me most of the men who worked under him had graduate degrees and “high tech” training. Union Oil became Unocal and mapping by horseback was replaced by satellite imaging.

I guess Dad wasn’t ready to “fold his hand” when he retired because a year later in 1975 he was hired by the US Geological Survey. I wasn’t around for the conversations that took place between him and my mother during that year when the retiree had exchanged his pick ax for a golf club. She was a company wife for those 45 years, after all, and not really used to have him underfoot 24 hours a day. The retired geologist got back in the game for ten more years, an active and productive time with a government agency that appreciated his expertise and wisdom.

I appreciated that wisdom too. He taught me lessons about work, about play, and about timing. Everything I know about gin rummy I learned from him, and it was mostly about timing, knowing when to lay down the cards early for points or to strategize to “go for the gin.”  Retirement?  It’s all about timing.

Megan:

How (not) to Step Aside

Say you find out the person you’ve been dating is thinking about returning to their ex, or is interested in someone else. There are a couple ways to handle this. You can scream and cry and create a lot of drama. You can step aside gracefully.  You can combine the two – although it is difficult to scream and cry gracefully and then step aside dramatically.  I have tried some variation of them all, as this is something that seems to keep happening to me.  So here is a list of 10 things to remember not to do, if you should find yourself in this situation.

1. Do not measure their time together against your time together: If they were together for six years, and you were together for 3 weeks--  Six years wins.
2. Do not send emotional texts or emails – the digital age has no eraser. If you must leave whiny, pleading messages, consider writing them in condensation from the morning dew on his car. This is romantic, but also … creepy.
3. Do not corner him in the parking lot after work. This will force him to say a bunch of mean things that are also true. You will feel bad after.
4. Do not start dating his best friend.
5. Do not burst into tears the first time you see them together again, especially if you are at a New Years Eve party and slightly tipsy.
6. Do not stare at her engagement ring.
7. Do not believe him when you run into him alone and he drunkenly confides that he made a mistake and that there will not be a wedding.
8. Do not stand across the street and watch as they enter the church to get married. This will not feel like closure, it will just hurt. And again, creepy.
9. Do not forget to say "Congratulations" when he tells you about the baby.
10. Do not quit your job and leave the country, unless there are other good reasons to do so.

Of course, this is not the complete list – a list of what not to do could go on forever (for example: do not kidnap his dog). You might consider becoming friends with the new girlfriend (but it depends on how you acted during the transition). Some of my best friends started out as the partners of the object of my affection, and have stayed my friends long after the affection has faded. The important thing to remember when stepping aside is to act with confidence as though it was your idea – as though you are doing them a favor – even though, more likely than not, you have no choice in the matter whatsoever. That’s the graceful part.