Teaching your kids manners when the adults are behaving badly

As any parent can tell you, it's hard to teach manners to kids.  Getting your kids to say 'Please' and 'Thank you' and 'Nice to meet you' without constant prompting requires Herculean effort on a daily basis for years before it finally becomes second nature to them.  And it's near impossible to reinforce the need for manners when popular kids programs feature characters who talk down to the adults in their lives (if there are any around) and get lots of canned laughter for rude behaviour and impertinent remarks.

But what about when it's the adults that are behaving poorly?  How do you deal with an eight-year-old who asks, "Why do I have to take off my hat at the table when (insert loutish adult here) doesn't have to and he's an adult?"

At a recent Thanksgiving dinner with my spouse's large extended family, two of the adults brought their smartphones to the dinner table.  Both are parents.  One tapped quietly, checking emails and texts and ignoring the conversation around her.  The other played a loud video on her device and passed it around for everyone to enjoy.

The device made its way down the table, being passed from person to person along with the creamed corn and the gravy.  As it approached me, I wondered how I would deal with it.  We have a strict 'No smartphones at the dinner table' rule in my house.  My kids don't have their own phones yet so the rule is both a reminder for their father and me in the present and a preemptive strike for my kids in the future. So, face-to-face with something I had sworn to my kids was 'rude', I ran through my options:

• Take the phone, glance at the screen, smile weakly to safe face, and pass it on? (safe but wimpy)
• Get up from the table and pretend to go to the restroom just as it was about to be passed to me? (safe but cowardly)
• Go on a rant about how nothing is sacred anymore and the ancient Mayans were right when they suggested the world should end in 2012 (confronting rudeness with more rudeness)
• Get over myself, join the fun, laugh at the video and be a good sport (and lose this teaching moment?)

In the end, I mashed all the options together and said, "I'm going to pass because we don't allow phones at our dinner table and if the kids see me with this, they'll use it against me."

I got a few eye rolls from my dinner companions but that's to be expected.  They have already branded me as weird for my insistence that they don't post photos of my kids on Facebook.  But I was slightly concerned that I had hurt the feelings of the smartphone owner.  After all, while she has a different set of etiquette rules than me, she genuinely thought she was providing entertainment value with her Youtube offering.  I glanced  glance down the table to see her reaction but I need not have worried.  She was busy looking at photos on the other phone that was at the table and hadn't even noticed.  Such is the short attention span associated with anything electronic nowadays.

In case you're wondering, the video featured a dancing vegetable...

8 Commandments of the Checkout Line

The funny thing about etiquette is, it’s the little things that drive us nuts.  Sure, there are thousands of etiquette books and hundreds of guidelines about netiquette and dress codes and proper forms of introduction but when it comes right down to it, we become most infuriated when people violate the small, unwritten rules of civility.  Few of us are offended if someone wears white after Labour Day or sticks their name tag on the wrong side of their body, but try to sneak 11 items into the express checkout lane and we turn into Emily Post.  In my observations of everyday etiquette, I have noticed that the grocery store checkout lane is a bottomless pit of bad manners so I thought I’d address some of the worst offences here, in Moses style.

1. Thou shalt not disobey the express checkout rules – If you’re able to shop for, and pay for, groceries on your own, you must know how to count to 10 (or eight, or whatever the case may be where you shop).  Eleven is not 10.  Twelve is not 10.  Only 10 is 10.  And, in case you’re wondering, two of the same item still counts as two, not one.

2. Thou shalt have your cards ready – Before you enter the store, or at least when your groceries are being checked through, locate the card you wish to pay with.  Nothing is more frustrating than seeing someone dig through a wallet or bag searching for an elusive debit, credit or worse, points card, while a lineup of shoppers fumes behind them.  Have your payment card at the ready and if you can’t find your Air Miles or PC Points card, just leave it and vow to be more organized next time.  I actually stood in line once while a cashier let someone go out to their car to look for a points card.

3. Thou shalt not force price checks – I get it. There’s nothing worse than picking up ten frozen pizzas because you think they’re $2.99, only to see them clock in at $5.99 but that doesn’t mean you can hold up the entire line to prove a point.  If the deal was advertised in the flyer, show it to the cashier.  If you thought you saw a sign, and there aren’t too many others in line, have them check.  But holding up five other shoppers because you’re convinced the margarine was $.10 off when you have no evidence to back it up, is not cool.

4. Thou shalt prequalify your coupons – So you’ve seen Extreme Couponing and you want to get in on the action.  Fine, frugality is good.  But, as a fellow couponer, I can tell you that Canadian coupons are much more restrictive than their U.S. counterparts and your efforts to save money will often be stymied by expiration dates, quantity limits and pairing restrictions.  Coupons are great but before you dig through your purse for that that crumpled scrap entitling you to $.50 off cheese strings, read the fine print.

5. Thou shalt try to pack your groceries quickly – Now that we pay for plastic bags and stores no longer pay teenagers to bag our purchases, many of us have to cram our fish fingers and milk into a mish-mash of reusuable bags, bins and backpacks.  Understandably, this takes time but there’s no need to be a perfectionist about it.  Finish the job as quickly as possible and move on so that the next customer can use the conveyor belt. 

6. Thou shalt not alleviate boredom by talking into your cell phone – I know checkout lines are boring but that’s what the National Enquirer is for.  If three-headed dogs aren’t your thing, browse the news on your smart phone but refrain from long, annoying conversations.  Remember that the people sharing the line with you are trapped and can’t get away from your inane conversation. If you can’t resist, at least hang up when it’s time to pay.  Trying to fish a credit card out of your wallet while simultaneously bending your head to keep your phone from falling, all while having a conversation, is not only time-consuming, it’s disrespectful.  

7. Thou shalt behave if you’re allowed to go ahead – Once in a while, you will find yourself behind someone with a bulging cart when you only have two things.  Depending on their mood, time constraints and level of awareness, they may let you go in front of them.  They may not and that’s their prerogative.  If they do let you go ahead, you must not hold them up in any way.  That means no questions, no price checks, no haggling over price.

8. Thou shalt not chit-chat – This is not really an issue in a large city where most transactions are anonymous and the chances that you know a cashier personally are minimal.  However, in the small town where I grew up, it’s not uncommon to wait in a checkout line while the customer in front of you chats with the cashier, getting caught up on everything from her mother’s hip replacement to the upcoming Rotary BBQ at the arena.  I know this is lovely and we all need to smell the roses, etc. but when people are waiting in line, it’s best to keep social chat for social events.

Is there anything you would like to add to the checkout line commandments?  I would love it if I could get two more to make an even ten. 

Just when I think I've seen it all...

People often ask me to name the worst etiquette faux pas.  While there are some basic etiquette rules that should never be broken, there's no list that ranks gaffes in order of most egregious.  Besides, people are annoyed by different things and what might be the height of rudeness to one person is perfectly acceptable to another. Having said that, I know what my answer would be.

 

 In order, the top three things that drive me crazy are:

1. Inappropriate cell phone use

2. Cheating at four-way stop signs

3. Chewing gum with your mouth open

So I'm always ready to share cell phone horror stories and remind people of cell phone etiquette courtesy (whether they ask for it or not).  In Toronto, we are surrounded by a cacophony of jangling ringtones, loud talkers and people trying to balance phones between their shoulder and jaw as they try to multi-task.  While other people can tune it out, I never get used to it and it continues to rankle me day after day.

Just when I thought I had seen (and heard) it all, I witnessed something the other night that shocked even me. 

I was getting a pedicure in a local salon. It's a small shop and in addition to myself, there were three other customers and three staff members.  One of the customers was making very loud, back-to-back cell phone calls all through her manicure.  When the technician was working on one hand, she would hold the phone in the other.  When it was time for that hand's nails to be painted, she would switch hands.  You get the picture.

When her nails were finally finished, the technician politely asked her to refrain from using her phone until her nails were completely dry.  I breathed a sigh of relief that we would finally have some respite from her incessant, one-sided chatter.  But it was not to be.  Without missing a beat, she placed the phone on the table, carefully punched in some numbers and then (gasp), put it on speaker phone.  A man called Boris answered and she proceeded to have a loud, annoying conversation with him without even telling him that a) he was on speaker and b) seven other hapless victims were hearing the entire call. Their conversation lasted about 10 minutes, turned into a heated argument, revealed lots of personal details about poor Boris and had the cumulative effect of making all of us squirm in our seats and look at each other in amazement.  We tried to give her the look of death but she was absolutely immune to it, so wrapped up in her own world.

The salon staff apologized to the other customers but didn't seem to feel comfortable asking her to end the call so I did it for them, in the most polite way possible of course. She looked at me like I was the rude one, stood up and stormed out of the store.

This example is rife with examples of poor cell phone etiquette but, just as a refresher, I'll summarize the usage guidelines here:

1. Don't have a long cell phone conversation in a place where people cannot escape from you - this means elevators, grounded airplanes, cafes, restaurants, retail checkout lines and salons.

2. If you must have a cell phone conversation in public, try to maintain at least 10 feet between you and the next human.

3. Unless it's a business boardroom and a conference call is planned, never have a speaker phone conversation in the vicinity of other people.

4. Never put the person on the other end of the line on speaker phone without asking their permission, or at the very least, giving them a heads-up.

5. Don't yell.  The microphones on cell phones are so good these days that you could almost use a whisper and people would still be able to hear you.

6. Don't share sensitive information in the vicinity of other people - for security and embarrassment reasons, refrain from sharing personal details, phone numbers, email addresses, snail mail addresses, negotiation or proprietary information or information of a competitive nature.

7. Ditch the cutesy rings if you're an adult - I know many people disagree with me on this one but I don't want to hear a tinny rendition of "All the Single Ladies" squeezed out of the tiny speakers on your iPhone.

8.Turn off your ringer in any place where it would annoy others (e.g. during a speech, at an awards show, at a  performance, at the movies, etc.) and if you happen to forget, please for the love of God, don't pick it up and start talking.

Hope this is helpful.  Let me know if there are any other cell phone situations that bug you.

Loose Lips Sink Ships...or Trains

Dear Incessant Cell Phone User:

I would recognize your voice anywhere. After all, I had to listen to it for five hours straight on the train yesterday. You probably didn’t notice me at all. I tend to keep a low profile on train trips and use them as a time to relax and unwind. But I noticed you. How could I not? You kept me and several other passengers entertained with your non-stop cell phone conversations. I guess you didn’t hear the announcement suggesting passengers keep cell phones on vibrate for the comfort of other guests. I guess it didn’t occur to you that perhaps your captive audience would have preferred to pass the time without the soundtrack of your business dealings.

I know what you do for a living. I know all about your company. I know what clients you represent, what their annual revenues are, which ones are gearing up for an IPO and who is currently working a name change through the legal system. I know who you called to pitch new business and I heard your tips for dealing with the SEC. I know your full name, how to spell it, your phone number and your e-mail address. We all heard when you spelled it out for that guy you were talking to about funding.

Miss Manners likes to say “polite people don’t hear things they’re not supposed to hear” and she’s right. I’m not a nosy person and, had I not been traveling alone, chances are I wouldn’t have paid so much attention to your conversations. But you were right behind me, I was by myself, my iPOD battery was dead and I had only a book to keep me company. You were speaking so loudly that I couldn’t help but overhear.

I must say, I admire your tenacity. You worked hard on that train trip. You used up every single minute working that phone. You obviously work very hard for your clients and they are lucky to have you as their representative.

But, in case you’ve forgotten, let me just take a moment to remind you of the basics of cell phone etiquette.
- One should try to refrain from using a cell phone in a place where others cannot escape from you ( a speeding train qualifies)
- One should try to refrain from using a cell phone within 10 feet of another person
- One should try to refrain from disclosing sensitive information on a crowded train

Best of luck with your future endeavours.

p.s. Hope things work out with the boat.

Five Easy Ways to Celebrate National Cellphone Courtesy Month

Yes folks, it's that time of year again that I know you've all been waiting for - National Cellphone Courtesy Month. What's that? You weren't even aware that there was such a thing? Well I'm shocked. Surely you don't think that there's no need for it. Perish the thought.

Fellow etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore first declared July National Cellphone Courtesy Month in 2002 and sadly, it's still necessary, maybe even more so. Why, just a few weeks ago, President Obama had to interupt a speech because someone's cell phone, with a quacking duck ringtone no less, was going off. If the leader of the free world doesn't merit cell phone etiquette, is there any chance for the rest of us?

Wanna prove that you're not a total cretin when it comes to cell phone use? Here are my five tips for celebrating National Cellphone Courtesy Month. I'm sure you can abide by at least one of them for the rest of July.

1. Turn it off - That's right, I said it. Does it really need to be on all the time? Are you SO important? Next time you go for dinner or to a movie, just turn it right off. I'm not talking about putting it on mute or vibrate. I mean, press that big old red button that turns the screen black and put it at the bottom of your purse or pocket. Your date will thank you.

2. Prioritize real people - A real person, that is one who happens to be standing right in front of you ALWAYS takes priority over a virtual person. Simple as that. If you answer calls, respond to e-mails or send text messages while talking to another human, you are sending a message that they are unimportant to you. And we don't want to do that now, do we?

3. If you must answer... - Okay, I get it. You're so important that there are times you absolutely can't turn off your phone or ignore the beeping. Maybe you're waiting to find out that you've been cast in the latest installment in the Twilight franchise. Or you're about to "bag the elephant" client you've been chasing for months. Just have the decency to let people know ahead of time. Here's how: "I must apologize in advance. I'm waiting for a really important call and might have to answer my phone during our discussion". Simple!

4. Don't trap people - Unless your house is burning down, please try to limit cell phone use in any place where people cannot escape from you. This includes bank lineups, grounded airplanes, elevators and, shudder, bathroom stalls. There is nothing more ingratiating than having to listen to someone drone on in a loud voice about their plans for redecorating the guest room, the trials and tribulations of their love life or their latest "player" exploits. Yes, boastful jerk on the tarmac at Dorval. You know who you are.

5. Ditch the cute ring tones - Especially if the statute of limitations on your eligibility to join a frat house has expired. This is particularly relevant for employees who are looking to broaden their horizons. Nothing says "I'm not ready to be promoted" like Mr. T's voice blaring every time your phone goes off. Of course, if you're at work, it shouldn't really be on...Refer to point #1.

Living out a "no cell phone" fantasy

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is my new hero. He lived out one of my etiquette fantasies when, in a recent briefing, he took a chirping cell phone from a reporter, walked to the exit and threw it into the hallway. It was the third time in a matter of minutes that the same cell phone had rung and Gibbs had already asked the journalist to switch it to vibrate.

In our own meetings and briefings, most of us are not usually high enough in the pecking order to take charge of annoying breaches of etiquette with as much gusto. As I've said before on this blog, there is absolutely no justification for a ringing cell phone during a meeting. It's disrespectful to anyone who is speaking, interupts presentations and signals that the owner of the offending instrument feels he or she is somehow immune from the accepted code of conduct for professional gatherings.

While I applaud Gibbs for taking a stand, it's sad that he got precious little support from the other journalists in attendance. If you watch the video, most of them are laughing and shouting and one of them, completely oblivous to what's going on, picks up his ringing cell phone seconds later and, horrors, answers it and starts talking. It takes a few minutes for him to get back on track.

If you are in a meeting, accept that, for the duration, the person holding the meeting, or whoever has the floor at any given time, deserves your full attention. The only way to ensure this is to turn your phone off completely, no vibrate and no silent alerts. If you're so important that the galaxy will fall apart if you're not reachable for an hour, then at least leave the room periodically to check your e-mails and voicemails.

It takes a great deal of confidence and poise to continue to get through a presentation to people who are obviously not listening. Give the speaker a break and pay attention.

Cell phone manners gone wild

Yesterday morning I posted that this week is National Etiquette Week and suggested some ways that we can all be more polite and improve the lives of others in the process. By the end of the day, I had witnessed a manners faux pas of the first order - someone who had an entire cell phone conversation in the middle of someone else's presentation.

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a great event organized by the yummy mummy club. The focus of the event was how to use Twitter and it featured a great guest speaker, Scott Stratten from unmarketing. I don't think I have ever heard anyone articulate the power of Twitter in such an engaging and humorous way and if you haven't already heard Scott speak, make a point of it.

At the beginning of his talk, Scott suggested that people leave their cell phones on during his presentation, and, if they have an annoying ring tone, to let it ring through so we can all enjoy it. Most of us took this suggestion in the tongue in cheek nature in which it was intended and turned our ringers to silent. He also encouraged us to tweet about the event while it was happening. Although I don't normally advocate using handheld devices at all during a presentation, I have come to accept that social media events can be an exception.

About halfway through the presentation, we heard our first annoying ringtone but, rather than letting it ring or turning it off, the owner of the cell phone picked it up, said "hello" and proceeded to have a rather loud conversation at his table. While those close to him strained to hear Scott's words and everyone else in the packed room squirmed in their seats, this poor guy continued to chat as if he was the only person in the room. Finally, he looked around, realized that he had become the unwitting focus of attention and got off the call.

In his defense, he claimed to have misunderstood Scott's initial instructions and thought that he had advocated an "anything goes" approach to etiquette. Do you think that, after the glares he received from everyone else in the room, he finally understood?

Nope. About 20 minutes later, he got another call and proceeded to do exactly the same thing.

So there you have it. On the first day of National Etiquette Week, an etiquette first, not once but twice.