What Would Emily Post Do?

Did You Get the Message? Mobile Manners Do Matter

by Anna Post

Ten years ago, cell phones demanded new etiquette guidelines. Now, smart phones and BlackBerrys are the new black sheep of the mobile device family.  How do we know we need rules for them? The sheer amount of public debate alone clamors for answers. The New York Times added its voice to the mix (again) recently with its piece by Alex Williams, "Mind Your BlackBerry or Mind Your Manners." Perhaps a little etiquette advice can allow us to do both?

My favorite anecdote describes a man playing a racing game on his iPhone for the duration of an hour-plus-long meeting. Why did those he was meeting with grin and bear it? Because this was a potential client, and they didn't want to lose the deal. Regardless, this man's behavior--only giving a piece of his attention--showed a clear lack of respect. Luckily for him it was a price someone was willing to pay. 

The article also references a May 2009 poll by Yahoo HotJobs. In it, over 33 percent of the 5,300 respondents said they frequently check emails in a meeting, and nearly 20 percent said they had been taken to task over their manners. I'm guessing the number of those offended was even higher, as many, like those meeting with the iPhone Mario Andretti, will stay mum about the offense given. 

In recent days I've also seen reporting on mobile device manners surveys by both Intel and Harris International.The Intel survey discussed something that an AP/IPSOS poll from a few years had also confirmed to me: People see rudeness in others, not in themselves. Intel reports that 9 out of 10 people were annoyed by mobile behaviors, but only 38 percent admitted to texting while with others. This is a clear case of lack of awareness. These many polls and surveys show that people are indeed bothered by someone using their smart phone or BlackBerry right in front of them. Understanding how we are perceived--as annoying or rude--when we lose perspective on our situation can help us invest in minding our manners.

BlackBerrys and smart phones are not the problem. They can be a huge asset in the business world--the president himself endorses them as vital to his ability to do his job. (You know, leader of the free world.) The problem is how--and when--we choose to use them. A few tips:

1. Turn it off in a meeting. While others may be trying to show how busy and important they are, you'll be showing your respect for the people you are with. Which one do you want to do business with?

2. Be wary of where and what you are doing on your Blackberry.  If you happen to be updating your Facebook status or checking your bank account information, you never know who might be peeking over your shoulder. I’ve been working with 3M and they have this great 3M Mobile Privacy Film that darkens side views so people can’t see what your doing on your Blackberry.  This also comes in handy when dealing with nosy friends who are trying to get a look at what you are texting your significant other.

3. Use correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, salutations and closings when BlackBerrying with anyone you don't know well, especially clients and superiors. This goes doubly for anyone a generation (or two or three) above you, who may not be as tolerant of the casual nature of BlackBerry messages. The quick, abbreviated message you tap out may look fine on your little screen, but it's not so impressive when seen across a large monitor in an office.

The article closed with a quote about BlackBerry use in meetings from David Brotherton, a Seattle-based media consultant: "It's a not-so-subtle way of signaling 'I'm connected. I'm busy. I'm important. And if this meeting doesn't hold my interest, I've got 10 other things I can do instead.'"

Okay, I get it--you're cool! But if you've got attention to spare for your BlackBerry while in a meeting, you need to organize your time better. Working smart in this economy is crucial, so save your BlackBerrys for the subways, taxis and airports--the in-between times--and give all of your focus to the people you are with.

Thank-You Notes: Blue Ribbon is the Winner

by Anna Post

As an etiquette author and expert, people sometimes expect me to eat with seventeen utensils on the table, wear gloves and a hat at all times, be 114 years old, and have no sense of humor.

Not the case! I am quite normal, and don't worry too much about living up to others' expectations for good behavior (no crooked pinkies here!)--I choose only to live up to my own. The one place the two do meet is over thank-you notes.

I talk about the importance of writing thank-you notes at wedding book signings and business etiquette seminars. I am well aware of the egg that would be on my face if I then failed to practice what I preach.

I love writing notes, and I don't find thank-you notes a chore. I think most people avoid them because they place too much pressure on themselves. You don't need to write a Shakespearean tome of gratitude; a few simple lines saying thanks for the gift is all it takes:

• Say thank you for the specific gift
• Say something in praise of it (and if that would be a lie, just say how thoughtful it was of the giver, as this much is true)
• Add a few personal lines if you wish ("look forward to seeing you this summer," etc.)
• Or just end with a "thanks again" and then sign off

A large part of my affinity for writing thank-yous comes from the joy I take in the cards themselves. I love the style options out there today, and save the beautiful note cards that are sent to me. My current favorite (photo above) came from my editor at Brides.com; she thanked me for a baby gift I sent her on a note card from Blue Ribbon, a letterpress company out of Brooklyn. The site answered my desire for cards that are classic enough to say a serious "thank-you" but also chic and stylish enough to feel fresh and modern.

Enjoy! (And no need to thank me.)

Icebox Cake: A Gift from Me to You on My 30th

by Anna Post

I recently had my thirtieth birthday, and celebrated last Friday with a belated party. A perfect Vermont summer evening in the country: There were armfuls of peonies around the yard and house, and friends and family in abundance. But as usual, it was food that took center stage chez Post. Here is my recipe for an easy success:

• local cheese plates with calamata olives, red grapes and dried apricots
• spicy marinated grilled shrimp (from my mother's secret Gourmet recipe)
• red potato salad
• local green salad with homemade vinagrette
• sliced hydroponic tomatoes
• filet mignon sliced for sliders with rosemary garlic aioli

We served Malbecs (my favorite) and crisp Sauvignon Blancs along with another personal favorite, Champagne mixed with St. Germain elderflower liquor, something I call a Parisian (even though I know it's not).

Everything came out beautifully, but it was the birthday cake, blazing with (thanks guys) thirty candles, that stole the show: icebox cake. Icebox as in, refrigerator. An old classic, it's terrifically easy to make from  Nabisco  "Famous" chocolate waffers layered with homemade whipped cream. You form stacks of these, line them up rows of them on their side, cover the whole thing in more whipped cream , and allow to sit in the fridge (icebox) for several hours. The waffers absorb the cream and the whole thing sets, leaving a sliceable dessert that tastes like a gourmet Oreo cookie. I like to add fresh June strawberries.

Happy Birthday indeed!

Twitter: If It's Good Enough for Oprah, It's Good Enough for Me

by Anna Post

Today I joined Twitter.  www.twitter.com/AnnaPost. Up until now I had felt like one of those hold outs who wouldn't read Harry Potter or see Juno because of the hype.

Silly me. The forum is perfect for little etiquette quirks I hear about or links to interesting news that I either don't have enough to say about in a blog, or more usually, don't have the time to do justice to in a blog.  One of my first tweets today was on the now-public email rant that DC Congressional staffer Elizabeth Becton made about someone calling her "Liz." There are so many etiquette angles about it I would love to explore:

• avoid nicknames unless you are sure it's okay
• call or see someone if an email goes South--as The New York Times reported, in the absence of tone or voice or facial expression our interpretation defaults to the negative
• your image in business isn't yours alone, it's also your company's, or in this case, Congressman's
• emails seem private in business; they aren't
• good etiquette doesn't use ALL CAPS
• good etiquette corrects without chastising
• good etiquette accepts apologies
• good etiquette... well, you get the idea

However, I simply don't have time in my schedule today to give more than an outline. But I still want all of you to enjoy the ridiculousness of it! Enter Twitter.

And yes, my correct-usage-of-the-English-language loving mother is now calling me a Twit. She gets the whole Twitter thing, but it sure is making her laugh awful loud.

Be Bold About Your Courtesy, America! No Apologies!

by Anna Post

While researching disability etiquette for the next (18th) edition of Etiquette, I took a break to read the afternoon headlines, and came across...disability etiquette. The New York Times City Room blog reported today on the New York City Transit's new advertising campaign to educate customers about relinquishing their seats to other passengers in greater need, such as the disabled, pregnant or elderly. One advertisement reads, "Please Offer a Seat (It's not only polite, it's the law.)"

I like the message, but wish they had skipped the parenthetical. But more on that in a moment. I was reminded of my tenure in Washington, D.C., where new traffic signs went up in the downtown while I lived there. In an effort to avoid D.C.'s notorious gridlock (and yes, it is that bad), they said, "DON'T BLOCK THE BOX (please)."

Yes, the "please" was indeed italicized. To me, the parentheses and italics always read as an apology for the courtesy of having said please on a traffic sign. Depending on my mood, and the traffic, these signs either made me roll my eyes in exasperation or laugh. It was as though there was a glaring sign over it, blinking: "Compromise! Compromise! Apology! Apology!" I can image a city planning committee debating the language, parenthetical, and italicization for hours:

    "No 'please'; people should know this!"
    "If we are nice about it in the sign, drivers will be nice about it on the road!"
    "They'll just ignore a request--we have to be firm!"

I love it when people are polite--I've made a whole career out of it. But I also like directness, and the apologetic way the please appears on the D.C. sign made me wish they had skipped it altogether, or made out-and-out committed to it: no italics, no parentheses. Be bold about your courtesy!

The parenthetical lessons on civility and laws on the New York City Transit and D.C. traffic signs speak to new era that is no longer sure whether or not they are making a statement of the obvious--that civility is a known,  fundamental part of our interactions as a society--or giving new and valuable information about civility to a society that would care...if it only knew to.

Talk  about a question of perspective. How do you see society? In need of a polite nudge to remind us to use good behavior? Lacking beyond the possibility of correction? Are the parentheticals to be polite unnecessary, or is the message simply enough?

Love Reigns Supreme on Wedding Stamps

With wedding season upon us, the U.S. Postal Service announced new wedding stamps on May 1. However, my personal favorites are the new first class "Love: King and Queen of Hearts" stamps. Just remember to check envelope weight, as these are 44¢--perfect for RSVP card envelopes or, as I'm using them, for thank-you notes.

And if these option don't tickle your fancy, you can always have custom stamps made with your own images or photos at stamps.com.

Fly the WiFi-Friendly Skies

 by Anna Post

I'm on the web all the time, whether it's for work or my own personal use. I'm also on planes all the time, though just for work. The two don't usually mix, but thanks to AirTran, that will soon be changing. 

By the end of July, AirTran plans to have all of its planes equipped to offer in-flight WiFi to passengers with wireless internet-capable devices. No more disconnecting from the real world from take-off to touch-down.

So much of my life is wired into the internet--blogging, banking, email, weather, news, pop culture, Facebook, Netflix, Pandora, work, shopping--that I always thought I'd be happy to log back on once we reached cruising altitude. I'm a very copacetic flyer, enjoying the time-out from phone calls and emails to read books and magazines, get ahead on my columns and chapters for work, watch in-flight movies, or snooze to my iPod. I'm realizing that I indulge--and enjoy--all of these things because I don't have the internet as an option. Will that enjoyment diminish now that it's available? I don't think so. Hello, Netflix on-demand!

It does, however, make me think about how best to set some boundaries. Perhaps I won't open Outlook. And in such crowded quarters, it certainly makes me think about privacy. Someone reading my laptop over my shoulder right now will likely see my latest masterpiece of etiquette--hardly state secrets. But I check my bank account several times a day. Not information I want available to seat 14B. And many of the movies in my Netflix queue are rated R; while many are also Oscar nominated, it doesn't mean they are appropriate for a public audience.

It's for exactly these kinds of reasons that I'm working with 3M Privacy Filters on an etiquette program. A thin film of plastic, the 3M privacy filter drops into discrete clear plastic tabs that adhere to the edges of your screen, making the filter removable when at home. From the side, the screen appears black, but when sitting in front of it, you'd never know it was there.

I recently saw them in use when visiting someone in the hospital, and they make perfect sense--nothing on the monitor was visible, even as I passed very close to a mobile computer unit. Unless the passenger directly behind you has x-ray vision, your bank codes and taste in movies will stay as private as you could wish. (Read: no one has to know that I watch Gossip Girl.)

Interestingly, 3M also makes a film that works the same way as the computer filters, but is used for cell phones. But please, let's draw the line at in-flight cell phone use. We need to keep those skies friendly.

Gibbs Delivers White House Press Briefing on Etiquette

by Anna Post

At a White House briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was speaking to members of the press when a cell phone rang. He handled it perfectly, asking the owner, John Gizzi of Human Events magazine, to put it on vibrate. His tone used humor to stem Gizzi's rudeness—especially as it was the third time he'd asked it to be shut off. I know some corporate cultures are lax in their attitudes toward cell phones and BlackBerries, but this is, um, the White House. And televised. Show a little respect!

Figuring the third time was the charm, Gibbs returned to his briefing, only to have the phone ring a fourth time. Not only was Gizzi thoughtlessly rude to have left it on so many times, he was actively rude to ignore the request to switch it off.

Gibbs then did what so many of us have dreamed of in restaurants, movie theaters, and crowded airports: He confiscated the phone and tossed it down an adjacent hallway (claiming someone caught it), and then literally shut the door on the while thing. It made my day watching how well he handled it.

But it gets better. Another phone goes off, and instead of ignoring it, the phone's owner, CBS reporter Bill Plante, actually takes the call! He blew it twice: He should have had the phone on vibrate—especially after Gibbs made his nationally televised point—and if he was going to take the call, he should have left the room first and then answered. Perhaps it was a play to get some face time and attention for CBS? If so, I can only say that in this case, not all press is good press. 

The White House press corps clearly needs an etiquette briefing: Keep phones on silent or vibrate when in a meeting, or better yet, turn them off. That's what voice mail, annoying as it is, is for. If you simply must take a call, step outside first and then answer.

I can already hear the follow up: Why? Attention is a sign of respect. When you've chosen to commit your time to someone, whether it's in business or your personal life, you owe them your attention—you owe them your respect.

NPR Shows Us How to Shake the Swine Flu

From swine flu scares to the common cold, facts are facts: Germs are spread by human contact. But for as long as humans have understood the concept of being social, greetings have been part of our code of civility. Whether it's bowing, kissing, or shaking hands, failing to engage in these greetings can damage first impressions or long-standing relationships alike.

So what happens when safeguarding our collective health comes into conflict with the most basic and ingrained of social customs? NPR inspired me today with their partly serious, partly spoof guide, Don't Gimme Five! While I'd draw the line at the "foot smack" (it looks too much like a ball player kicking sand at an umpire), holding back on the classic shake isn't always a bad idea.

Whether you refrain from contact to help the CDC, because your religion forbids it, or your hand just isn't available, say with words what the hand shake, hug, or social kiss implicitly conveys, "It's great to meet you/see you; please excuse me for not shaking hands."

Founding Fathers, Founding Manners

My boyfriend and I have been working our way through the seven-part HBO miniseries John Adams, based on the book of the same name by David McCullough. I read the book when it first came out and loved it, so I was prepared to like the series. I was completely surprised, however, by the portrayal of George Washington.

I had never though very hard about it, but I realized I had no concept of him as an individual; to me, he was just the mythic figure of grade school, and later, as a political science major in college, as the author of his famous Farewell Address in 1796. But the performance that David Morse gave brought him endearingly to life. So much so that I pulled a copy of His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis, off my shelf where it had been lingering unread since my John Adams days.

In the early pages I was reminded of the list of manners--110 in all--that Washington wrote when he was young. Though sometimes sold as a book, credited to him as the author, in reality, they were a copy of a set of manners created by French Jesuit priests in 1595.

While it was most likely a penmanship exercise, the list survived as a terrific example of the timelessness of good manners--and the peculiarities of a few that, while the considerate sentiment is classic, have no bearing on our modern age, such as number nine: "Spit not in the Fire, nor Stoop low before it neither Put your Hands into the Flames to warm them, nor Set your Feet upon the Fire especially if there be meat before it."

I also love the superciliousness of number 16: "Do not Puff up the Cheeks, Loll not out the tongue rub the Hands, or beard, thrust out the lips, or bite them or keep the Lips too open or too Close." I would translate this to: Be self-aware of your actions and image. But to each his own.

Number one sums it all up, though: "Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present." This is timeless advice that will never change.