DEAR MISS MANNERS: My baby’s choir held a live performance at a big, historic church. I arrived early and took a seat on the middle aisle, the place I’d have the very best view of the singers.
A short while later, an older couple arrived and requested to share my pew. I stood as much as enable them to enter. The gentleman indicated that I ought to go forward of them, to which I replied that I want to keep on the aisle. They appeared stunned and walked off to seek out different seats.
Does etiquette dictate that these arriving first to an occasion held in a church should at all times transfer to the center of the pew? Or, as I assumed, is it equally well mannered to face and permit others to enter?
GENTLE READER: You acted politely throughout the info you describe. However earlier than anybody condemns the aged couple, Miss Manners can even commend you on a second level: not tackling them within the aisle.
Maybe they’re common parishioners who sit in these seats each Sunday and had, mistakenly, come to think about them as theirs. Maybe they’ve a incapacity challenge and due to this fact needed you to maneuver apart — however omitted the mandatory politeness of asking you to take action.
If both of these items had been true, your staying put would nonetheless not have been rude. However maybe their shock at your refusal to relocate wouldn’t have rankled as a lot had you recognized their causes for asking.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: The workplace the place I work has about 20 folks, half working in particular person and half distant.
A younger girl early in her profession, who works remotely and is on a number of of the common video calls I attend every week, is pleasant and goes out of her approach to say good issues to folks. She is at all times the primary to note a brand new haircut or pair of glasses.
I see that she values these kind of compliments, and I attempt to reciprocate. The problem is that this particular person clothes wildly — far exterior the corporate costume code, with really weird outfits and hair and make-up mixtures that always catch me off guard. Suppose fuzzy bunny costumes with lengthy floppy ears, dramatic eyeshadow, tops produced from repurposed straitjackets, and so forth.
I’m not her supervisor, and it’s not my job to critique her model, however these sartorial decisions are going to carry her again if she stays in our subject. I don’t need to encourage it (“Cool bunny ears!”) and am having a tough time pondering of applicable, complimentary issues to say within the second.
GENTLE READER: We agree that it isn’t your job to critique her clothes decisions. Why, then, would you assume it’s your job to reward them?
It’s immaterial whether or not the assembly is distant or in particular person — or, for that matter, whether or not “in-person” can be the proper approach to describe somebody arriving on the workplace in a bunny costume.
That is purported to be a place of job. Want her a very good morning and get on with the assembly.
Please ship your inquiries to Miss Manners at her web site, www.missmanners.com; to her e mail, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or by means of postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas Metropolis, MO 64106.
