Busy People Should Be Discreet
Dear Miss Manners: As my date arrived at my pied-a-terre for a dinner party in honor of two of our dearest friends, who have just announced a blessed event, her cellular phone rang. For more than a quarter of an hour, she proceeded to conduct business with a colleague calling from Hong Kong.
While I understand that international business pays no attention to clocks, it was a strain for me to toss the salad and speak to my other guests in whispered tones as she carried on with matters of the day.
What should one do about cellular calls received after business hours have closed in the recipient’s time zone?
Gentle Reader: The simple rule that one should not go out partying until one is off work for the day seems to outrage a great many important people.
Miss Manners knows just how important they are, because they tell her. “If I went by that,” they say, in righteously indignant reaction to her little rule, “I’d never get to relax!”
And with people who are that important - even though this category now includes practically everybody - the whole world has a stake in their being able to relax. If they were not in the best of health and moods, they would not be able to make those essential round-the-clock contributions to humanity. Miss Manners will therefore relax the rule. But not much.
Although people who have basic work to do during the evening should not accept social engagements, everyone is allowed a very occasional exception, provided the agreement of his or her hosts is obtained beforehand.
Thus your friend could have replied to your invitation by saying, “I’d love to be there, but I’m expecting a call then that I’ll have to take, for about 15 minutes.”
This would give you the choice of saying that you were sorry to miss her but would invite her again when she was less busy, or of saying, “Come anyway. You can just slip in the bedroom with the call when it comes, and we’ll go ahead with dinner.”
If you choose to do the latter, both your date and you should make the interruption as inconspicuous as possible. She should briefly excuse herself, and then as briefly apologize upon her return to the party.
Only the cynical would imagine that thus removing the showiness from doing important business in front of people who have nothing more compelling to do than to be sociable might cut done on the amount of business being done at parties.
Dear Miss Manners: I find it rude when another person starts smoking close to me in an enclosed public building. If that person wants to ruin their body, that’s fine, but they don’t have to ruin mine, too.
I’ve found that coughing loudly or stage-whispering to a friend how I can’t breathe usually works, but I don’t believe that is the best way to solve the problem.
Gentle Reader: No, and you’ll be amazed at what the best way is. It involves the assumption of good will on the part of a fellow human being.
Yes! Even one who smokes! The polite way to ask someone not to smoke in your presence is to say, “Excuse me, but I’m afraid smoke bothers me.”
Miss Manners is not promising that it will always work. You may have to send for someone who will invoke rules against smoking in the building - or, if the rule doesn’t apply, avoid the area.
But a polite start at least offers the smoker a less embarrassing chance to apologize and put out the cigarette or smoke elsewhere than does an amateur dramatization of impending death from secondhand smoke.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate