Company exec’s disgusting habit needs to move offscreen
Dear Miss Manners:
I am a lowly communications professional at a technology firm. When we have video calls with upper-level people, our wonderful leader spits tobacco juice into a clear plastic bottle. On camera.
He spits elegantly, but I still want him to stop because it’s gross. He’s chewed tobacco since he was a young man, and when we’re in the office, he also does it elegantly and turns away when he spits. Quite unobtrusive. But when he does it on camera, it makes me, his communications adviser, want to hit him with a large stick.
I am glad we’re working from home. How does one politely notify a senior executive that he has a disgusting habit?
Gentle Reader:
No matter how wonderful your leader is, Miss Manners doubts anyone’s ability to spit elegantly.
As a lowly employee, your ability to correct his behavior is limited. But as his communications adviser — with the best interests of the company, and your leader, at heart — you have greater latitude. Explain to him that some of the customers have expressed concern about his on- camera habit. You wonder if he is aware that this new technology makes every action more noticeable than it is in person, and you were sure he would want to know.
Dear Miss Manners:
My common sense and my upbringing are in conflict. Based on my upbringing, if I am invited to a wedding, I always send a gift. No exceptions. Even if I do not plan to attend, and even if I am mystified as to how I made the list in the first place. After all, they extended one of their limited invites to me.
In this time of COVID, however, I have begun to receive invitations to attend/watch virtual, livestreamed weddings. In these cases, there is no limit on the number of people a couple can invite. In many cases, I feel like the only explanation for my invitation is that they invited everyone on an email list
(e.g., all members of a church or synagogue).
This feels more like a fundraising solicitation than a real wedding invitation! My common sense tells me that there is no need to send a gift just because I am invited to stream a wedding, unless I have enough of a relationship to the couple that I would have at least considered attending a physical wedding.
What do you think? Are the rules different now? Does an invitation to a virtual wedding require a real gift? Does it matter whether I receive a physical invitation or just an e-vite?
Gentle Reader:
Although she does not wish to criticize your upbringing or your generosity, Miss Manners must protest that requesting a waiver from a rule that does not exist puts her at a disadvantage. Presents are given voluntarily; they are never mandatory. No exceptions.
You are therefore free not to participate — so long as you keep to yourself your feeling that the invitation is brazen gift-fishing.
Dear Miss Manners:
I need to start addressing Christmas cards. In this everchanging world, I don’t know the proper way to address envelopes. Please help. Until now, I knew that if I were addressing a doctor and his wife, the address would read, “Dr. and Mrs. John Smith.” But how should the address read if the woman has the professional title, and not the man?
Also, with so many gay marriages, how would I address a letter to two men or two women? And what if the couple has chosen one surname? These modern times have me quite perplexed.
Gentle Reader:
But it is so simple. All you need is another line on the envelope:
“Dr. Jasmine Wright/Mr. Rocco Wright.” “Ms. Lily Hunter/Ms. Isabelle Groton.” Or, on one line, “The Messrs. Everett and Luke Hampshire.”