Volunteer to organize if you don’t like school’s approach

My child’s school is having a staff appreciation week, which isn’t a bad idea for the efforts they put in and how they enhance our kids’ lives.

What strikes me as extremely gauche, however, is that it’s being organized and run by the school while asking parents to contribute as follows:

First day: Send kind words/thanks.

Second day: Send sugary treats.

Third day: Buy something from their wish lists.

Fourth day: Staff members get a special Mexican luncheon while parents cover classroom duties. (Keep in mind that students have been trying to get the quality of the school’s food improved for months, while the staff claims there is no need. Students are sometimes not eating at all because of how bad they perceive the food to be.)

Fifth day: Send a teacher’s favorite snacks and drinks to stock their fridge.

This seems like the kind of thing that parents should organize if they want to do it, not be pressured into it by the school. If the school administration wants to do it, they should fund it.

It comes across like, “Hey, aren’t we great? Buy us stuff and tell us how great we are!” And then they send reminders EVERY DAY. Tacky.

Do teachers and school staff deserve nice things? Yep. But this is not the way to go about it, in my opinion.

Gentle reader: Agreed. No doubt, the school administration would love to have the parents step up, instead, and make up for the school’s obvious lack of funding. So if you do not like the school’s approach, Miss Manners suggests the way around it is to volunteer to be the parent organizer instead.

Aren’t you sorry you asked?

I work in a large medical center where colleagues frequently stop in the halls to converse.

My quandary arises when these conversations occur with one participant on one side of the hallway and the other across the hall, leaving those passing no choice but to walk between them as they talk.

Must I excuse myself ? I suppose I could pause and wait for them to finish their discussion so as not to interrupt them, but this seems extreme in terms of passive-aggressiveness.

I confess that this often happens on my way into work, when I have not yet had any coffee and am inclined to grumpiness.

But I also feel that the chatting pair is forcing this quandary upon me by choosing to chat across the hallway. I suppose that is the crux of my disgruntlement: Their choice forces me to choose between rudeness and ridiculousness.

Are the conversationholders entitled to an apology when I walk between them as they converse?

Am I absolved of feeling guilty if I decline to extend that courtesy?

Dear Miss Manners:

Could you have some coffee at home, and be not quite so easily thrown by your chatty colleagues?

Gentle reader:

Miss Manners is not defending them, but neither does she consider that they are committing a high crime. If you don’t want to excuse yourself, she supposes you could plow ahead, calling “Coming through!”

But you are mistaken in thinking that “excuse me” is, in this case, an admission of fault on your part.

If you say it in an authoritative voice, “Excuse me!” sounds like a command, and should prompt your colleagues to murmur the apologetic version of the phrase.

I get numerous calls on my personal cellphone and often am not available to answer. If someone in my contact list calls me and I do not answer, should I call them back, even if they do not leave me a message asking me to do so?

Dear Miss Manners:

Gentle reader: Not knowing who called or how you feel about speaking with them, Miss Manners cannot say if you should call them back, only that etiquette does not require that you do so.

Miss Manners is aware of the argument that this is inefficient. But she suspects that those making it are more concerned with the few seconds they will spend explaining themselves to your voicemail than with the time the recipient will lose deciding whether the call was pressing or of the I-was-in-the-car-and-hadtime-to-kill variety.