You can’t include everyone in coffee runs
Reader had her caffeine crew expanded to include several others, and it’s getting expensive
At my work, two colleagues and I take turns grabbing coffee. Lately, out of politeness, I’ve offered a few other folks a coffee while I walk past them. Now they are sort of hanging around waiting to give me their order. It’s annoying, impossible to carry and expensive. How can I get out of this? Oh dear! Sounds like your kindness is costing you! That’s very thoughtful of you to offer to grab morning drinks, but you don’t need to treat the entire office every day. I can imagine how quickly those costs add up. Plus, how do you possibly manage five drinks without spilling them?
I would get your drinks with your two colleagues more on the downlow. You could grab them on your way in, before you even step foot into the office, so you don’t feel tempted to offer to grab anyone else’s drink. Or, you could wait until later in the morning with the hopes that the rest of your colleagues are already caffeinated.
Years ago, I worked with someone for maybe two weeks, tops. She added me on LinkedIn and asked me to endorse her for all kinds of skills that I never saw. I feel obligated, but gross. Oh, that is uncomfortable. Don’t feel obligated to vouch for someone’s skills unless you have total faith in them. It’s not only disingenuous, it is potentially a poor reflection on you. All of the content on LinkedIn is fairly public, so it is akin to writing someone a letter of recommen- dation, which I assume you’d put some thought into before putting a pen to paper. I get it: it is easy to click those handy little endorsements willy-nilly, but treat them seriously. If you click on this person’s profile and scroll down to the Skills and Endorsements section, you can likely find something you’re comfortable vouching for. Look for things such as interpersonal skills, rather than technical skills, that you can attest to. Hopefully this way you can maintain a good relationship, but not feel like you’ve had to fudge the truth.
I couldn’t make it to the wedding of a friend that lives on the other side of the country, but I want to send them a gift. Four months have passed, have I missed the window for it not being weird? I don’t think anyone has received a gift and thought, “ugh, this is so late I can’t enjoy it.” Well, at least anyone decent.
It is never too late to send a gift or a thank you card. While it is nice to get something over a few months after the wedding, sometimes life happens and that just isn’t in the cards. There is a long-standing tradition that you have an entire year to send a wedding gift, but even if it has been longer that that, who cares? Include a nice little card acknowledging better late than never when you send it over. They’ll be thrilled, I’m sure! Etiquette expert Karen Cleveland answers your questions about life online. Email your questions: Karen@mannersaresexy.com.