No Need For Third Party In Giving

Dear Miss Manners: I am a business executive and have contact with hundreds of people, many at an amazingly high corporate level and well-to-do, if not outright wealthy. With a good number, I have even developed a personal and pleasant friendship.

I receive a significant number of “gifts” from them, which indicate that a donation has been made to the donor’s favorite charity in my name!

I applaud the good fortune of charity in general to receive such gifts, but it does seem rather a “twofer” (or possible three-for-one) benefit to the donor who gets the tax deduction, appears munificent in my eyes as well as to the community, and to whom I am now obligated.

My name then appears on lists for charities to which I have no personal connection and some with which I do not wish to be associated, given the vagaries of personal lifestyles and beliefs these days. Continual solicitations by these charities add to the junk mail and inopportune phone calls I receive.

Gentle Reader: When Miss Manners sides with you - as she does - she knows she will receive a huge load of junk reasoning:

Isn’t it better to give to charity than to waste money on trinkets nobody needs? How are charities going to get money without incentives for giving? Isn’t it good to get everyone in the habit of thinking in terms of charitable giving at Christmas? Isn’t it more in the spirit of Christmas to be thinking of others? Don’t the poor need this more than the rich need to give things to one another?

Yes, yes, yes. But none of this explains why people can’t just send in their own donations to their own favorite charities and stop pretending that this constitutes a favor for a third party.

Miss Manners doubts that your business or personal relationships would suffer if these people skipped the sham of giving you presents and dealt directly with the charities. If they truly want to involve you, they should trust your judgment in picking a charity and ask you where you would most like a donation to be made.

Dear Miss Manners: We are members of a private club which serves food and are a little uncomfortable with aggressive friendliness.

The waiters and waitresses have been either instructed or have taken it upon themselves to shake hands with the members. Has protocol changed? Is this considered proper?

Gentle Reader: Aggressive friendliness is an excellent term for what you describe. Misdirecting the gestures of friendship doesn’t just make people feel uncomfortable - it also makes them feel uncomfortable with their discomfort, because it doesn’t seem right to reject an overture of friendship.

This misunderstanding is one of many that have arisen from the common misuse of the word “friendly” in professional relationships. What is really meant is that a pleasant and cheerful demeanor should be maintained, not a false show of personal friendship, which is how it is often unfortunately interpreted.

Club staffs, in particular, may have been told to make the members feel at home, which is right as far as it goes. But the idea should be to behave as if they staffed that home, not owned it. Polite people greet their housekeepers, butlers or dog-walkers pleasantly, but not with a handshake or a kiss. Or if they do, that is another situation entirely.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate