Dear lady manners: I have a friend who, when she cuts her hair and I don’t recognize it, brings it to my attentive.
It is never attractive, and I know that it will not keep up. I don’t know the educated way to say: Hey, you had a haircut, without saying that it looks good.
By the way, she never congratulates me for anything.
Soft reader: The deep moral iniquity of raising the spirit of a friend telling her the haircut was a success eludes Miss Manners, but she will take your word for it.
Could you at least smile and say: “You look great; did you cut the new haircut?” This, of course, will be in vain if your friend is silly enough as for then, “Do you like?” And you feel obliged to answer: “I am not a judge of those things.”
Dear lady manners: I am no more Call Waiting fan than Miss Manners, but I do to defend its limited utility.
I was co -owner and manager of a small business for several years, and I often had to act as a receptionist responding to our office phone.
If I am on the phone and call the waiting sounds, I ask the party to wait 15 seconds while checking my other line. I ask you to call again if we are disconnected, and I repeat my guarantee that I will answer you in 15 seconds.
Change to party B in the second line declaring my name and asking yours. Then I immediately say that I have to return to my other line, but I will definitely call them again in five or 10 or 15 minutes (which seems realistic to finish the call of the party a).
Under no circumstances will I allow Part B to explain the reason for your call; If you try, I interrupt and repeat that I need to hang and call them. If they are still talking, I tell you for the second time I have to hang. Then I hang up, without waiting for your consent or recognition.
If the whole process is handled efficiently, I return to the party to within the 15 seconds that I promised. But some people inevitably persist in telling me their story, so I have to stand firm and cut them.
Am I being rude or my system is sufficiently educated for the modern world?
Soft reader: Educated enough for the modern world sounds like a standard for those who have stopped worrying: one step back does whatever naturally, he thought perhaps better than the perpetually sadly what makes you happy.
The interesting thing about your situation is that the commercial label can have different rules than those applied in the personal world. Hospitals do not take people with a basic strictly for the first time, for the first time for a good reason, and this leads to ask what service your company provides.
Whatever it is, the more pressing is the reason why I can pick up quickly for the next call call, for example, it was attending a direct suicide prevention line, the more you will not have to hang the current one. And even if you can’t keep the current person, what justification is there to hang instead of putting it on hold?
Send your questions to Miss Manners on the website, www.missmanners.com; To your email, quermissmanners@gmail.com; Or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndionction, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
