5 Simple Rules of Etiquette For Modern Life
Please note: This tirade is levied against everyone--myself included. This is not a response to any single recent event, but to a slowly-developing trend that continues to rise unabashedly. The modern urban denizen seems to have forgotten his/her manners. Is this a function of over-stimulation? Communication overload? Exhaustion? Early morning binge drinking? Perhaps. Are any of these valid excuses? Absolutely not (well, maybe 6 Bloody Marys by 9 AM means you should be worried about other things).
5) When splitting a check, include tax, a NY tip, and round up.
Provided no one gets the surf and turf or just a soda, just split the check down the middle or in identical portions. But if you don't, a couple of things to realize: while you may be doing the credit card holder a service by allowing them to draw your cash on their card purchase, you do not deserve to charge an ATM fee unless you own a Bodega. When you add up your items on the check, add the 8.5% for NY tax and another 20-25% for a New York tip (don't ignore tax and just leave 15%--you're shorting your friend 10% and you're ignoring the great job that a lot of waiters and waitresses in this town do). And then round up another to the nearest 5 or 10 so no one gets shorted. It's easier to get a few dollars back if everyone overpays. And you don't all need to get the evil eye from the person with the credit card.
4) If someone's interested in you, romantically, and you have no interest in him/her, tell him/her in an unmistakable fashion that there's nothing going on.
The endless leading on is cruel, cowardly and an unnecessary waste of his/her time. If you're looking to keep an option open, that's fine--for a week or two. Beyond that, you're being rude and disrespectful. I was part of a conversation where a couple of people were talking about how to let someone down easy. It involved avoidance, deception, off-putting and trusting that the other person would get the message. Everyone's hyper-sensitive--no one wants to hurt anyone else, to explain him/herself, to be up-front with someone else. And yet if that other party spends the next month taking the statements at face value, getting a little annoyed, wondering what's really going on and then finally putting it together, it was a nuisance in one person's life, but a total disappointment and a waste of energy on the other person's behalf. So yes, it's more convenient to just ignore them, but it also shows a general lack of respect and a lack of courage. That said, you don't need to tell someone that they smell funny or are a little cross-eyed or have the most annoying laugh, but you do need to tell them if you are not interested.
3) When you say you'll do something, do it, or call the second it becomes impossible and apologize.
Have you ever called someone flaky? Flaky people never do what they say they will, but oftentimes they call and apologize--this allows you to adjust. Flaky people annoy me, but the people who don't even call or apologize aggravate me like you wouldn't believe because they haven't considered how their arbitrary decision to bail impacts you. Now I don't hold a grudge, but I also don't forget and if you can't even pick up the phone to bail on something you had committed to, I know who I won't call when I need a friend's help.
2) Reply to every email addressed to you which includes a direct question.
How hard is this? We do get a TON of emails daily. Usually this is an issue of being organized, but imagine if someone came up to you and asked a question and you simply ignored them and kept doing what you were doing. Figure out a system, sort your emails, mark the ones that need answering and if someone emails YOU and only YOU and asks YOU a question, ANSWER IT! It's not that complicated. We all know you check your email at least daily except when you're out on vacation (btw, put up and out-of-the-country message to cover that). So the whole "well, I don't need to reply now because they don't know when I got the email" ruse is really thinly-veiled self-justification. Write the two lines or mark it for later if it's more involved. It didn't get caught by your spam filter, nor did it just somehow vanish into cyberspace--you know how I know? Because when I emailed you about some extra Yankees tickets I had, you wrote back in 30 seconds. You shouldn't assume people are really dumb--it's not nice.
1) Return your phone calls.
It shocks me, in business and in life, how many times I catch someone in after the third or fourth phone call and they have the gall to say to me "Oh, I was meaning to give you a call back." No. You weren't. It's been a month since I called you the first time. You haven't called back. You weren't going to. I tried this time for kicks. You picked up, by accident, before Call ID showed. If you'd seen the Call ID you might have felt guilty for not calling me, but that would only make you even less likely to call back. Make a list of people you need to call back if that'll work for you. Call people back immediately to avoid the guilt. It takes two seconds to make a phone call--you carry a telephone or two or three with you EVERYWHERE YOU GO. Are you really so busy you can't ever pick it up and knock off those two or three calls? Worried it's too late or too early or an inconvenient time? Try the 10AM-10PM rule or leave it to them to not pick up--and if you don't hear from them after a month, send them this to read.
In short, we're all at least a little less important than we think, at least a little less busy that we seem, and at least a little more polite than we have been. Keep those in mind and you'll have a much fuller life.
Please note: This tirade is levied against everyone--myself included. This is not a response to any single recent event, but to a slowly-developing trend that continues to rise unabashedly. The modern urban denizen seems to have forgotten his/her manners. Is this a function of over-stimulation? Communication overload? Exhaustion? Early morning binge drinking? Perhaps. Are any of these valid excuses? Absolutely not (well, maybe 6 Bloody Marys by 9 AM means you should be worried about other things).
5) When splitting a check, include tax, a NY tip, and round up.
Provided no one gets the surf and turf or just a soda, just split the check down the middle or in identical portions. But if you don't, a couple of things to realize: while you may be doing the credit card holder a service by allowing them to draw your cash on their card purchase, you do not deserve to charge an ATM fee unless you own a Bodega. When you add up your items on the check, add the 8.5% for NY tax and another 20-25% for a New York tip (don't ignore tax and just leave 15%--you're shorting your friend 10% and you're ignoring the great job that a lot of waiters and waitresses in this town do). And then round up another to the nearest 5 or 10 so no one gets shorted. It's easier to get a few dollars back if everyone overpays. And you don't all need to get the evil eye from the person with the credit card.
4) If someone's interested in you, romantically, and you have no interest in him/her, tell him/her in an unmistakable fashion that there's nothing going on.
The endless leading on is cruel, cowardly and an unnecessary waste of his/her time. If you're looking to keep an option open, that's fine--for a week or two. Beyond that, you're being rude and disrespectful. I was part of a conversation where a couple of people were talking about how to let someone down easy. It involved avoidance, deception, off-putting and trusting that the other person would get the message. Everyone's hyper-sensitive--no one wants to hurt anyone else, to explain him/herself, to be up-front with someone else. And yet if that other party spends the next month taking the statements at face value, getting a little annoyed, wondering what's really going on and then finally putting it together, it was a nuisance in one person's life, but a total disappointment and a waste of energy on the other person's behalf. So yes, it's more convenient to just ignore them, but it also shows a general lack of respect and a lack of courage. That said, you don't need to tell someone that they smell funny or are a little cross-eyed or have the most annoying laugh, but you do need to tell them if you are not interested.
3) When you say you'll do something, do it, or call the second it becomes impossible and apologize.
Have you ever called someone flaky? Flaky people never do what they say they will, but oftentimes they call and apologize--this allows you to adjust. Flaky people annoy me, but the people who don't even call or apologize aggravate me like you wouldn't believe because they haven't considered how their arbitrary decision to bail impacts you. Now I don't hold a grudge, but I also don't forget and if you can't even pick up the phone to bail on something you had committed to, I know who I won't call when I need a friend's help.
2) Reply to every email addressed to you which includes a direct question.
How hard is this? We do get a TON of emails daily. Usually this is an issue of being organized, but imagine if someone came up to you and asked a question and you simply ignored them and kept doing what you were doing. Figure out a system, sort your emails, mark the ones that need answering and if someone emails YOU and only YOU and asks YOU a question, ANSWER IT! It's not that complicated. We all know you check your email at least daily except when you're out on vacation (btw, put up and out-of-the-country message to cover that). So the whole "well, I don't need to reply now because they don't know when I got the email" ruse is really thinly-veiled self-justification. Write the two lines or mark it for later if it's more involved. It didn't get caught by your spam filter, nor did it just somehow vanish into cyberspace--you know how I know? Because when I emailed you about some extra Yankees tickets I had, you wrote back in 30 seconds. You shouldn't assume people are really dumb--it's not nice.
1) Return your phone calls.
It shocks me, in business and in life, how many times I catch someone in after the third or fourth phone call and they have the gall to say to me "Oh, I was meaning to give you a call back." No. You weren't. It's been a month since I called you the first time. You haven't called back. You weren't going to. I tried this time for kicks. You picked up, by accident, before Call ID showed. If you'd seen the Call ID you might have felt guilty for not calling me, but that would only make you even less likely to call back. Make a list of people you need to call back if that'll work for you. Call people back immediately to avoid the guilt. It takes two seconds to make a phone call--you carry a telephone or two or three with you EVERYWHERE YOU GO. Are you really so busy you can't ever pick it up and knock off those two or three calls? Worried it's too late or too early or an inconvenient time? Try the 10AM-10PM rule or leave it to them to not pick up--and if you don't hear from them after a month, send them this to read.
In short, we're all at least a little less important than we think, at least a little less busy that we seem, and at least a little more polite than we have been. Keep those in mind and you'll have a much fuller life.
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