Ceremony Is Not Considered Cool
Dear Miss Manners: Having witnessed many job departures - whether for retirement or to a new job location - in my military career and since in civilian life, I know they can be done poorly.
A few short incidents will illustrate the point:
At a small lunch to bid farewell to a popular NCO leaving for a new assignment, she stood up to acknowledge the gifts and warm farewell sentiments and said, “I’m leaving and never coming back.” Then she sat down.
Admittedly, this woman had had some difficulties at this location, with her children’s school and illnesses, but this less-than-gracious goodbye left the audience feeling shortchanged on the niceties, if not outright insulted because their friendship (not to mention gifts and time and effort to honor her) were not acknowledged.
Another departing employee specified that her farewell lunch must be kept small, otherwise she would not come. Her boss honored her ultimatum - it was not a request - and those of us who wanted to say goodbye properly were denied the opportunity.
This had the effect of making me, for one, want to say, “Good riddance.” Surely Miss Manners could have supplied the precisely proper words to bid farewell while subtlety conveying an acerbic opinion of this selfish behavior.
At last a happy story: When a friend retiring from the Air Force told his boss that he wanted no ceremony - just give him the paperwork and let him walk out the door - my wife begged him to have a ceremony. She understands that this provides a fitting and rewarding end to a career.
My friend’s boss talked him into it, and the event exuded warmth and sentiment. My wife and I also hosted a small retirement dinner for the couple, which they appreciated greatly, and he admitted that he was glad he had been coerced into the ceremony. He now understood how fitting it was.
The common thread here concerns expectations of guests, and obligations and rewards of the honorees at these ritual functions, but I cannot quite put my finger on it.
Gentle Reader: It is that people have become embarrassed at the idea of ceremony, because it doesn’t seem to have a direct practical justification, and because it purports to be solemn in a world that prides itself on being jokey and detached.
Even weddings, celebrated more fervently than ever, try to introduce entertainment into the ceremony, as do funerals, when they are not minimized or avoided.
Whether one undercuts the ceremony with modesty, as was attempted by your friend who tried to squelch the idea of marking his retirement, or with sarcasm, as did the NCO who took the opportunity to insult her colleagues, the result is to belittle the occasion. (The attitude that the ceremony is purely for the benefit of its central figure, while the feelings of others with an interest in the event don’t count, doesn’t help, either.)
We still desperately need ritual to mark the milestones of life, filled as they are with difficult and contradictory emotions. The beauty and comfort of knowing that one is part of a social tradition and surrounded by people who care is overthrown at one’s peril.
Dear Miss Manners: I’m sure I already know the answer, but I was wondering how appropriate it is to have the addresses to wedding invitations printed. I wouldn’t mind writing them by hand, but there are so many lovely script fonts for laser printers these days.
Gentle Reader: If you don’t mind writing them by hand, please do, instead of asking questions to which you already know the answers. One day, mechanical requirements of the postal service will obligate Miss Manners to accept the printed envelope. But to hurry this along by valuing the font over the hand is not a help.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate