Keep A Spare Outfit Where You Work
Spilling soup on your blouse or putting a run in your pantyhose during the workday is an annoyance. But it also can present an etiquette dilemma.
Such faux pas are easy enough to laugh off when you’re spending the rest of the day among understanding colleagues. But what if you must meet with the boss before all traces of your favorite cafe’s soupe du jour have dried from your blouse front? Or if you must make a presentation to important clients with your stockings in shreds?
Do you ignore these obvious grooming gaffes? Or do you explain and apologize? “That’s exactly why I always keep a complete outfit hanging on the back of my door. I’ve heard too many horror stories like that,” said Lisa Maile, owner of Lisa Maile Image, Modeling & Acting School in Winter Park, Fla.
Ideally, said Maile, she would postpone the meeting or presentation a few minutes. “Just long enough to borrow a tie or a jacket. To swap blouses with someone. To beg a pair of pantyhose. I’d rather be a few minutes late than arrive with a blot on my image,” she said.
But what if there simply were no way to beg, borrow or steal a replacement garment?
“And if the boss didn’t actually see the accident happen? And if I couldn’t blame someone else?” Maile asked.
Precisely.
“Well, I’d probably mention it and apologize - humorously and fast,” she said.
“No need to dwell on it.”
Mascar
A: Mascara probably gives women more problems than most cosmetics. All it takes is a speck of dust to start the eyes watering and mascara can turn into drippy black sludge.
The solution: Retire to the restroom and blot away any wetness with tissues. Mix up a little warm water with a few drops of soap. Soak a few tissues in this solution, then squeeze out the excess and gently wipe the mascara mess from under your eyes and off your cheeks. Wipe again with water to rinse away any soap residue. Touch up with a little foundation or powder.
Left your lipstick at home? Well, anything that makes your lips shine will give you a more groomed appearance than no lipstick at all. Try a dab of petroleum jelly or even a drop of salad oil from the cafeteria.
Zit attack: And then there’s that skin problem that can strike men and women alike - the unexpected, unwanted zit on the nose, chin or forehead. Try to resist the urge to pick and squeeze because the more you meddle, the uglier things will get. Picking makes the pimple wet and messy. Squeezing makes the area around it red and swollen. Limit damage control to a gentle dab of tinted acne medication, concealer, foundation makeup or powder. (If you must use someone else’s cosmetics, squeeze a little onto a tissue or cotton ball, not onto your fingers, to prevent transferring bacteria from your skin to the container of makeup.)
Pssst! boss!: It’s good manners to tell your boss if his fly is open. So says Barbara Pachter of Cherry Hill, N.J., coauthor of the “Prentice Hall Complete Business Etiquette Handbook.” “Good business manners,” says Pachter, who runs her own communications-consulting business, “are a key component of quality.”
Over-capitalized: Also a big part of business etiquette these days is e-mailing. And if you like to write yours using all capital letters, they may seem like hollering to some readers, says online communications consultant Nadine Udall Fischer. She also suggests that you only use e-mail for urgent matters, that you be brief and complete, and that you avoid sending anything you wouldn’t want in the public domain. Also, if you have a message that you’d never deliver in person, don’t put it in an e-mail.
No sense of timing: Does anybody know what time it is? Modern telecommunications has made it a snap to call anywhere around the globe, any hour of the day. But AT&T says only one in four callers from this country knows what time of day it is in London, and only one in 10 knows what time it is in Japan. AT&T sponsored a survey recently that found only 27 percent of respondents are sure of what time it is in the country they’re dialing.