DEAR MISS MANNERS: I usually have lunch at fast-food eating places. I’ll get 5 or 6 packets of sizzling sauce from the self-serve space, and after I’m completed with lunch, I return the unopened packets to the place I received them.
Generally I get unhealthy appears to be like from individuals for doing this.
What’s the etiquette for this? Ought to I simply trash any unopened sauce packets?
GENTLE READER: Both answer is appropriate to etiquette, however this isn’t one you’re going to win, it doesn’t matter what you do.
Half of the restaurant will lecture you in regards to the waste of throwing away the unused packets — by no means thoughts that the packets are tiny. The opposite half will lecture you about its being unsanitary to return them — by no means thoughts that they’re sealed, and that they have been possible saved in far much less sanitary circumstances within the warehouse earlier than they made it to the self-serve space.
However Miss Manners has a query for you: On condition that the parts of the whole lot are equivalent from meal to meal, would it not not be easier to resolve, as soon as and for all, what number of packets you want?
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I used to be on the dentist, having a cleansing, when the dentist and the hygienist started an in depth dialog about their plans for the weekend.
One stated one thing humorous and I chuckled — as a lot as one can with instruments in a single’s mouth — at which level a pause of their dialog led me to imagine I had dedicated a fake pas by eavesdropping.
Sooner or later, ought to I faux to be a part of the furnishings?
GENTLE READER: Or extra like a plant being pruned or watered?
Miss Manners suspects that the dentist and hygienist, similar to all these individuals yelling into their telephones in public after which obtrusive at passersby, certainly thought you have been eavesdropping.
You weren’t.
The truth is, you will have executed them a favor by reminding them that another person was current. In any other case, they might have gone on to say one thing horrible, considering their affected person was below anesthesia.
If this occurs to you once more, faux you have been coughing and that you just want a rinse.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: What ought to my mannered response be to a co-worker’s sneeze? And what ought to my response be to those that say “God bless you” to me after I’ve sneezed?
Not desirous to perpetuate non secular superstition, I say nothing when a co-worker sneezes. That doesn’t trouble me a lot, however not acknowledging their good graces after I’ve sneezed does strike me as impolite.
I’ve by no means defined myself to my co-workers, and none have ever introduced it as much as me, however am certain it’s been observed that I appear to be missing on this space of politeness.
GENTLE READER: Do you additionally study every morning to resolve if it will likely be a superb one earlier than issuing your every day greeting?
Some conventions are normally simply meant as conventions. “Bless you” is much less disruptive than “Are you OK?” And the well mannered response is “Thank you.”
