Out of Line
HOW TO HANDLE PEOPLE WHO DON’T WAIT THEIR TURN. PLUS: SENDING WINE BACK.
How to deal with people cutting in line at calling hours? Today, I spent over an hour waiting my turn to pay my respects. While waiting patiently, two women in front of me allowed others to join them. There was no, “Do you mind?” These “add-ons” just kind of melded into the line by striking up a conversation with the women, then just continued as if they had been there all along. I consider a move like this disrespectful of those who have waited.
D.F. / Holden
Cutting in line is disrespectful and bad form. How to handle it, however, depends on the circumstances. Are you in a public place — a grocery store or amusement park — or at a private event? In the former there should be signage and staff to reinforce your point, though “should” is doing rather a lot of work in that sentence. Does the cutting in line materially affect you? There’s a kneejerk response against the unfairness of it, but sometimes queue-jumping costs the jumped-over time or opportunity, and sometimes it doesn’t. (If seats are assigned and the plane won’t take off or the show won’t start until everyone with a ticket is in them, it doesn’t matter.) Line-cutting can also happen out of simple confusion and is best treated as an honest mistake even if it’s not: “The line starts back there” in a friendly, “You couldn’t possibly have known that, dear” voice is usually enough.
But at an emotional event such as a funeral, be generous. Would you really have wanted to deprive friends of the chance to reconnect during a sorrowful event for an abstract principle of “first come, first serve”? Or is life too short for that?
I work in sales and often take clients to dinner at nice restaurants. As the “hostess,” I will often order a bottle of wine for the table and the server will offer me a sip. What are the acceptable protocols for sending it back? If I don’t like it, but there’s nothing ostensibly wrong with it, I will lie and say, “It’s great!” and then pour it. But why make the offer to begin with?
S.M. / Boston
They make the offer in case there is something clearly wrong with the wine, if it’s been corked or gone sour. You’ve already chosen the wine in consultation with the sommelier or server, so it should be to your taste. You are allowed to send it back if you don’t like it, but that should be a very, very rare occasion. If you regularly find yourself wanting to send wine back, take a tasting class and find out what you really like. Maybe you’ve been taking servers’ advice about what goes with what, and not learning your own palate.
And keep in mind, these are business dinners you’re talking about — it’s about your clients’ pleasure, not yours. Get the commission and buy a case of whatever you really like, you know?
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a writer with a PhD in psychology.