Dear Etiquetteer:
Situation 1: You are meeting someone at a restaurant. It is busy. Do you take a seat or join the crowd? I tend to try for a table near the door and leave word with the wait staff. Not all restaurants will allow you to do this.
Situation 2: You are meeting with someone who tends to be late. When is it reasonable to leave? The last time I waited for this person I completed 18 Christmas cards in batches of six. What made it difficult was the Christmas crowds which made it impossible to meet in our normal place.
Situation 3: Someone always criticizes your home when the subject comes up. Surprisingly enough I do not invite them person to my messy palace. If she cannot find something nice to say I wish she would keep quiet. I do not need to hear for the nth time that my closets need doors.
Dear Situated:
What an organized approach to presenting your problems. Let’s see if Etiquetteer can be as well ordered in response:
Situation 1: When meeting someone at a restaurant at a previously agreed-upon time but without a reservation, Etiquetteer will first make a quick tour of the dining room to ensure that the other party is not yet there, and then wait as near the entrance as possible. Your own method of attempting to sit in the line of vision of the entrance is also Perfectly Proper, but one cannot always rely unquestioningly on the waiters to remember; it’s so hard to find good help nowadays.
Situation 2: Fifteen minutes is the Established Time to wait for anyone in a public place. Parking and public transportation impede the punctuality of many — indeed, Etiquetteer is at this moment having a set-to with someone who claims to have arrived 16 minutes late — but Etiquetteer stoutly maintains that that is precisely why one allows for delays in one’s travel time. After that quarter-hour has passed, you are free to go about your business.
Situation 3: Indeed, why ever invite this person to your home? Should you year such comments, again, Etiquetteer suggests replying in a Restrained Ton “I know conditions at my home are unpleasant to you. I must inflict them on you less.” Thinking people will recognize this as the rebuke it is. May the Deity of Your Choice forbid you should have to be more explicit, you might suggest a date when that person can come and install new closet doors for you.
Dear Etiquetteer:
Over the holidays I got some terrible news. My doctor has advised me that I need to undergo some pretty serious surgery. I was shocked to hear that I had such an illness and am deeply embarrassed about the nature of the surgery.
I’ll have to be out of work for a couple weeks, and I’m confused and very worried about what to say to my coworkers. I’d die rather than have any of them learn why I’m being hospitalized, and yet the topic will surely come up. How can I avoid getting specific, ‘cause people will be bound to ask.
Dear Exercised:
It may seem like a strange segue to find the clue to your answer in decorative tile, and yet one can learn so much from interior design. The late Isabella Stewart Gardner memorably included white tiles with French mottos on them in her Fenway Court bathroom; one of them read “Sécrete de deux, Sécrete de Dieu, Sécrete de trois, Sécrete de tout.” In English it means “The secret of two is the secret of God, but the secret of three is the secret of all.”
You have every right to keep your medical conditions and history to yourself, obligated to no one at your workplace. Your supervisor and immediate colleagues will, of course, have to know that you will be away undergoing a necessary medical procedure. Further questions can be deflected with “Thanks for your interest, but I’d rather not discuss the specifics.”
Etiquetteer hopes that you will be able to differentiate between the Merely Curious and the Truly Compassionate among your colleagues. Both types come in every workplace and the good intentions of the latter should be appreciated. Please allow Etiquetteer to extend you the best possible wishes for a swift recovery.