Miss Manners

I came across this column in www.msn.com by Miss Manners. It was a really interesting read. Some of her suggestions can be quite subtilely sarcastic and other times strikes a point. It made me think about "etiquette" a little bit differently.

Coming from an Asian background where "face" is important and you don't want to "offend" everyone, I sometimes equate manners with agreeing all the time and letting the other person have his way, even when in my heart I want to say no really badly.

I like the way she suggested how a parent who wanted to invite only 3/4 of the class for her son's birthday party due to the party budget and Miss Manners said that " Do you think that Owen really needs five to eight enemies whom he has pointedly excluded from his party?" And goes on to inform that "if you discriminate, you must do so in ways that at least appear to be impersonal" And suggests a few ways on how to discriminate impersonally like inviting only the boys..

Another situation that I like how she responded is this article on a foraging co-worker. If it was me, I would have suggested ways on how to tell him off but inviting him to be part of the "team" is quite cool. Now he is forced to participate, since it's difficult to stop him from eating without creating an "enemy".