As I do every year, I watched the Academy Awards with a few friends. We meet at one friend’s house, enjoy a potluck dinner and gab about the dresses, the emcee(s), the Academy winners and losers. This year had its usual fill of beautiful and not so beautiful moments. We can learn many etiquette lessons by watching the Academy Awards.  Here are my notes on the good, the bad and the ugly moments of this year’s show.

Let’s start with the “Bad”

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I recently taught a social skills etiquette class to some high school students from Puget Sound Community School. One of the topics I covered was poise. I asked my students what poise meant to them. They replied “good posture”, “being confident” and “grace”. While those are part of poise there is more to it.

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I’ve been working with a client who is preparing for an important speech. One of the things we discussed is the protocol of introducing someone. Many speakers are unaware of proper speaking protocol, so I thought I’d share some tips.

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I asked my Facebook fans for ideas for a blog post and got some really good questions. They were focused on job search etiquette.

Q. When meeting a potential employer for coffee or a meal to discuss the possibility of working together who picks up the tab? And how do you handle the awkwardness when the check is delivered?

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I stopped in the grocery store the other day, looking for a special item in addition to the ginger snap cookies my husband had requested. I didn’t find what I wanted but in addition to the ginger snaps I grabbed a bag of potato chips that were calling to me and some jelly beans for my kid’s etiquette class. 

As I paid for my three junk food items the clerk, who kept staring at me, asked me if I was feeling alright. He said my skin color didn’t look right. I thought of saying “Oh don’t worry, I eat an apple once a week to make sure I get my vitamins.” Kidding aside, I was both angry and embarrassed he asked me such a personal question. While he may have meant well, it was not his place to comment.

It is rude to ask questions of such a personal nature. Do not ask people things like how they broke their arm, got their black eye, if they color their hair, etc. While you may be dying to know the answer, be mannerly and forgo the curiosity. People will share their stories with you if they want you to know. Make sense? Good, now I’ve go to go and eat an apple.

I have a problem. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time and until recently didn’t realize how serious the problem was. I’m working on changing, but it hasn’t been easy, especially since most people have the same problem. It’s a “you guys” problem. As in, “Have you guys seen the movie Avatar?” Those in the south use “y’all” instead of “you guys”. Either way, it’s improper English and needs to go away.

Why is it that we feel we need to add an extra word after “you” when we are talking about a group? “You” is both a singular and plural pronoun, so there is no need to add “guys” or “all” after the word. 

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A second cousin of mine, who I have been corresponding with via email and through letters, mentioned she was coming to Seattle for her grandnephew’s baptism. I was excited to see her as it had been probably 30 years since I’d seen her last. I invited her over for afternoon tea.

I have a cute yellow teapot that I bought years ago at an antique store and some lovely china my mom gave me, so I decided this was a good excuse to have a tea party. I knew I wanted to serve traditional tea fare, but wasn’t quite sure what that was. In my search for ideas, I found a recipe for cucumber mint sandwiches. They were very easy to make and so delicious.

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I recently wrapped up my 14 week kindness “class”. This class was offered to the general public by the Puget Sound Community School, a private school in Seattle for 11 to 18 year olds. The school founder, Andy Smallman, created the class “to start ripples of kindness that will be felt in far away places, touching others and creating even more kind acts.”

Each Sunday we were given assignments to perform that week. The assignments ranged from doing something kind for ourselves, because you can’t be kind to others if you’re not kind to yourself, to doing something kind anonymously to leaving something nice for someone to find, etc.

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I’ve been asked to teach a kid’s etiquette class to both boys and girls. As I’ve been putting together the curriculum, I had to pause when it came to teaching appropriate behavior for boys for treating girls and women in this modern day. I wondered should men still be expected to open the door for a woman, to pull her chair out, help her with her bags, walk on the street side of the sidewalk to protect her from splashes, etc.?

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When you are an etiquette consultant people love to either share with you their etiquette horror stories or ask for etiquette advice. I love that my friends and business associates want to tell me their stories and trust me for advice.

I thought it would be fun to feature some of the etiquette faux pas and questions I’ve gotten over the last month or so.

Etiquette faux pas

A business owner discovered he wasn’t going to be able to deliver on a project for a client, so three months after their last communication he sent an email breaking the bad news.

My response

Never ever give bad news to a client over email. Call them. Also, if you value your clients you should get back to them within 24 hours of their email or correspondence. If you don’t have an answer, communicate to them that you will have an answer by x date.

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