From time to time, we have a look at our postbag and sift through the questions that you have sent in on the vexed subject of wedding etiquette.
Here is a selection of questions, with answers from our etiquette experts:
1. “What’s the best way to explain to a friend that he or she isn’t invited to the wedding, because numbers are restricted?”
Be direct and offer an alternative. So don’t let your friend find out that he or she hasn’t been invited by a process of inference and osmosis – that will cause genuine offence. Instead, bite the bullet and approach the subject head-on. You can do this in person, or in writing (not by text). Explain that numbers are very restricted, that only a very small number of people have been invited (if you like, you can add a further explanation for this – budget, venue, family complications etc). Express your regret and propose that, as you won’t be seeing each other on the big day, it would be lovely to have a celebratory get-together. Suggest a time and a place (don’t leave it just hanging in the air as a possibility). Reassure your friend that you’re really looking forward to spending some quality time together.
2. “As the bride, how will I manage to be a ‘social butterfly’ on the big day, moving politely from one guest to the next, without it looking like I’m ditching each person for someone more interesting?”
As a key player on the big day, you will certainly need to circulate, and everyone will be aware of this. But it’s very important that you give each person you’re with your full attention, and don’t allow your glance to wander around the room. Once you’ve exchanged a few pleasantries and feel you need to move on you have two alternatives. You can grab a passing guest and introduce him/her to the person you’re talking to – give a short explanation, “Sally have you met John? We were at school together in Suffolk….” Once the two are beginning to talk together, you can say “If you’ll excuse me, I must go and chat to xxxxx”. If this is too difficult and you can’t lay your hands on any passing guests, just confront the problem head-on by saying “I’m so sorry, it’s been lovely talking to you, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to go and circulate/talk to x, y and z, or I’ll be in trouble!” Your guests will be charmed by your honesty and will understand that you have other social obligations.
3. “I have no idea where to start with the dreaded seating plan – my fiancé’s parents are divorced and can’t be seated together, I don’t know if we should seat our two best men (both married with young children) at the top table or with their families, and in general I’m not sure whether to put people with guests they know or try to mix people up to encourage mingling. I’m toying with just having guests pull a number out of a hat on the day so they can’t blame us if they’re unhappy with their seat!”
Generally, a seating plan is a chance to integrate your guests, and you can have great fun ‘matchmaking’ your friends in the table plan, and you may even find you are responsible for new friendships forming on your wedding day. Try and ensure that you alternate sexes and arrange the tables so that guests can recognise at least one other person on their table. Don’t take integration too far – you wouldn’t want your maiden aunt to be sitting on a table with a bunch of rowdy 20-something singles, so it’s often a good idea to match generations.
As far as divorced parents go, one solution is to dispense with the top table option altogether. Have three ‘top’ tables, one hosted by each of your fiancé’s parents, and one – where you and your husband will sit – hosted by your parents. Each of the best men (with their families) can sit at your fiancé’s parents ‘tables.
4. “My husband-to-be wants to do the speeches before the meal to get them out of the way, but I hate the thought of everyone going hungry while waiting, especially as we aren’t having canapés and I know how long my dad will be! Would it be an idea to alternate the speeches between courses, ie father of the bride, then the starter, then the groom, then the main course, then the best man, then the dessert? Or will this disturb the flow of the speeches?”
As you know, the tradition is to have all the speeches after the meal, and this really is the best idea – not just because it’s a tradition. As you say, guests will be anxious to get on with the real business of the wedding (ie socialising and celebrating), and won’t want to hang around waiting for the speeches before they start eating. And once people have settled down to eat, and are enjoying both the food and the company, a series of interruptions between courses won’t be very popular either. After the meal, when everyone has had plenty to eat and enjoyed some good conversation, is the time when there is a natural lull, when guests can sit back, sip a drink, relax and enjoy the speeches. Of course, as your husband says, this means the speeches are ‘hanging over’ the speechmakers, but the desire to get them over and done with can go against the natural rhythm of these events. Your guests will be much more receptive to the speeches after the meal.
5. “The wedding coordinators at our venue have really gone above and beyond the call of duty to make our day special and I want to get them something to say thank you. What’s appropriate?"
It is customary to simply write a gracious thank you letter to everyone who has helped, singling out specific things you appreciate (eg “we loved the table decorations and thought your seating plan was masterly”). It is quite common to send a printed and mounted wedding photograph as a gesture of appreciation.
Since your coordinators have provided a service, albeit a very good one, you would not normally give them a gift. If you really feel you would like to do so, then a bottle (or more!) of champagne (suitably gift-boxed), or some very fine quality chocolates would be most appropriate.
This week (10–14 October) is National Work-Life Week, “an opportunity for both employers and employees to focus on well-being at work and work-life balance.” We are all becoming increasingly aware of the toll that overwork, stress and a 24/7 working culture can have on our mental wellbeing. While home-based or hybrid working have become contemporary buzzwords, much lauded for the flexibility they can give us to manage our own working day, it is important to accept that modern technology ensures that we are ever available and that divisions between work and life are becoming dangerously blurred.
The rigid working practices of the past are distant memories. The days when hordes of bowler-hatted workers descended on the City during the rush hour and flocked home on crowded trains in the evening are long gone. Office hours were once fixed and inflexible: punctuality was demanded; outside annual holidays, time off was only grudgingly granted, usually at the behest of a doctor’s note. Yet the seeming rigidity of these practices led to a culture where work was strictly office-bound. Once the journey home had been negotiated, all thoughts of the office were blotted out by domestic and family life, and – with the exception of a small number of jobs – out-of-office hours were regarded as sacrosanct, and employees would only be contacted in the direst emergency.
Many of us have broken free from this diurnal routine, but our liberty runs the risk of coming at a very high price. We all have a range of means of communication at our disposal and this can mean that we are more or less ‘on call’ from dawn to dusk. Even if our employers are respectful of the need for a work-life balance and resist the urge to contact us during anti-social hours, we are all too often the authors of our own stress, compulsively checking work emails and messages when we should be relaxing.
So how do we guard against a stress-inducing work-life imbalance?
There’s no law that says that you can’t finish your report or answer your emails at midnight, if that’s how you like to work and it suits your body clock, but you should not feel under a compulsion to do so. If you are working partially, or wholly, from home, it is a good idea for your own sanity, and for partners and children, if you set down ‘rules’ for your working day. This means deciding when you aim to start work, when you aim to finish, times when you will be unavailable (eg because you’re going to the gym or on the school run), and times when you might consider putting in some extra time. It will be helpful to you and your family if you impose some sort of structure on your working day, and it might even help your employer if they know that there are times when you are definitely not available.
It can really help – especially if you are working at home – to use repeated rituals to underline the start and end of your working day. This can be something as simple as drinking your first cup of coffee as you check your emails at the start of the day, or writing a list of ‘things to do tomorrow’ before you shut your computer down at the end of the working day, or listening to a podcast as you travel home from work.
We can all feel beleaguered by our phones, computers and tablets. Sometimes it feels like we’re being bombarded by a cacophony of tones, beeps and notifications, and our Pavlovian response is to immediately jump to attention and deal with the incoming tidal wave. In an ideal world, the advice would be to simply ignore these calls for attention when we’ve ‘stopped’ working, but it’s not always easy. So why not switch off your notifications, or change your ‘focus’ settings, or even mute your phone – these are simple ways of stopping the world hammering at your door. If you’re still worried about not responding, you can always set an automatic reply on your work email every night, saying something like; ‘Thank you for your email. I aim to reply within 24 hours’. This is a perfectly reasonable way of asserting that your office ‘day’ is effectively over.
If you are a person who aims to please and finds it hard to set parameters and stick to boundaries, you might well find yourself at the beck and call of a thoughtless and demanding boss, who makes huge demands on your time and pays little attention to your stress levels. You need to learn to say no when it all gets too much. This can be hard to do at first, so start by prevaricating; if a request that goes beyond the call of duty is made to you, say you’ll have a think about it, or you’re not sure. This way, you will be able to buy some time to think carefully about what you want to do: if you want to say yes, that’s fine; but if you know you should say no, now is the time to do so, as you have already laid the groundwork. You don’t need to justify your action, or come up with reasons or excuses. Just politely say that you won’t be able to do what’s been asked of you.
Striving for perfection in your work life, or your home life, can be a major cause of stress and anxiety. While we all want to do the best job we can, it is important to be able to accept our limitations. In the work context, you may have to recognise that you have done the best you can in the time available, or acknowledge that there is no shame in revisiting the task later. In the domestic sphere you may be wise to discard a drive for perfection in favour of settling for convivial quality time. There is no point spending your evening meticulously ironing your handkerchiefs or cleaning out your kitchen cupboards, when there are children who need to have a story read to them, or a spouse who wants you to join them for a glass of wine and a favourite programme on television. You may take great pleasure and pride in your domestic skills, but nobody should prioritise clean cupboards or ironed laundry over nurturing meaningful relationships.
It can be tempting to become compulsively driven, both in work and life, turning each day into a headlong dash through a packed schedule of work appointments and tasks, childcare, exercise, cooking, domestic chores, without stopping for a moment to pause for thought. Running on pure adrenaline is exhausting, and very often will result in increased irritability with the people around you. You may even turn your own self-induced stress into a form of martyrdom, saying things like “I have to do everything around here” and demanding sympathy. This kind of behaviour is addictive and can be a common response to being over-stretched and over-worked. If you feel yourself lurching in this direction, consider simplifying your life, reducing your commitments, foregoing some of your activities, and just giving yourself a chance to unwind and do very little.
In an increasingly casual society, where many people only dress up on very rare occasions, dress codes may seem irrelevant. But they are an invaluable social signal, designed to protect guests from the embarrassment of turning up at an event underdressed, overdressed or in entirely inappropriate clothes.
With the exception of weddings, most of us do not give much thought to specified dress codes. However, we have probably all felt the frustration of receiving an invitation that gives no real clue to the level of formality required. We are reduced to desperately scanning the invitation, scrutinising the typography, design, venue and timings for clues, and the big question “what to wear?” becomes a needless source of social anxiety.
The days when every invitation specified dress code, and there were detailed rules governing the correct clothes for every occasion – from morning visits to afternoon tea, dinner parties and balls – are long gone. But dress codes can still provide useful parameters and advance intelligence for guests. Even if formal dress codes are not required, some guidance and advice is always a useful addition to invitations.
It is extraordinary to think that only a couple of generations ago white tie was standard evening dress and black tie was considered informal. Today, the most formal and rarest British dress code is white tie. Invitations to white tie events, such as a grand ball, are traditionally sent several weeks in advance so there is time to prepare. White tie for men means a black single-breasted tailcoat, with silk lapels, worn unbuttoned, with matching black trousers, with two lines of braid down the outside of the trouser legs. A white shirt is fastened with studs not buttons, with a detachable wing collar and a thin white bow tie. Women should wear a full-length evening dress or ball gown, with or without sleeves. Long gloves may be worn with sleeveless dresses.
Formal day dress is worn for the Derby, Britain’s most important horse race, Royal Ascot, royal garden parties and weddings. Men should wear a black or grey morning coat, single breasted, with peaked lapels, curved front edges sloping back at the sides into knee-length tails. This should be worn with a white or light-coloured shirt, silk tie and a grey or buff waistcoat. At Ascot and the Derby men wear a top hat; this is not necessary for weddings, though some people like to complete the outfit. Hats are not worn indoors. Women can opt to wear an elegant dress, a suit or a dress and jacket. Skirts need to be about knee length or slightly longer and the upper body should be covered for day events, as opposed to evening parties, so avoid cocktail dresses and low necklines. For Ascot and weddings, hats are essential – matching hats to an existing outfit can be hard and the cleverest trick is to get a black hat, which will always look elegant and will go with almost anything.
Black tie became popular when it was adopted by King Edward VIII and his royal brothers in the 1930s. Today black tie is the most formal dress code many people will experience. It remains usual for dinner dances and balls, formal dinners, such as dinners in the City of London, and occasionally for formal dinners in private houses. The jacket is a black, wool, single-breasted dinner jacket, with no vents, silk peaked lapels, or a shawl collar, and covered buttons. The black trousers are tapered with a single row of braid. Wear with a soft-collared white or cream shirt. The bow tie itself should be traditional and not too big. Avoid clip-on or ready-tied ties and learn how to tie your own. Ladies should wear an evening dress; knee length cocktail dresses are the most popular choice, though floor-length evening dresses can also be worn.
Despite its name, what this really means is business attire: for men, a dark or grey suit, collar and tie and formal, polished, black shoes. Women should wear a skirt or trouser suit or a dress and jacket, with mid-heel shoes. Outside the office this dress code would be acceptable for a business lunch or a social lunch on a weekday or for drinks after work or dinner in a restaurant. In the past, wearing business attire for dinner in someone’s house would have been incorrect, but realistically with longer working hours it is now more common. Men may wish to remove their tie on arrival if others are more casually dressed.
Apart from the more formal dress codes described here, the one most frequently encountered is smart casual. In essence this is not business attire, so men should wear a jacket and quite possibly a tie, but wear the jacket or blazer with chinos or flannels. Ladies may wear a dress and jacket or trousers but denim, even designer denim, is probably too casual. Avoid anything that may look like beach or athletic gear and wear leather shoes, not trainers or sandals. Smart casual is usually a dress code for daytime events. For evening, the rules for men are not very different, though darker trousers and a silk shirt may work better. Women may choose a cocktail dress, more jewellery and higher heels.
Understanding the context helps get smart casual right. Consider the age group of the people concerned and even the weather. Is the event in the city or the country? Will it be held in the day or the evening? Did you receive a formal invitation several weeks in advance or was it a telephone call from a close friend for the following weekend? All these things make a difference. An invitation card to an evening event in the city indicates something both more formal and therefore smart and fashionable than an email asking you to celebrate a friend’s birthday in the country next Saturday.
The best way to look really right, especially with smart casual, is to focus on accessories. A smart belt, perfect shoes, a great watch, a statement necklace or earrings, (but not both at once) make all the difference. While it is increasingly fashionable to look unkempt and crumpled, it is always safest to leave the just-fallen-out-of-bed look to celebrities. An immaculate turn out is far more courteous to your host and nine times out of ten you will look better too.
If you’re unsure about the just how smart ‘smart casual’ is, you can always arrive looking smartly dressed and be prepared to make ad hoc adjustments: men can probably just remove ties and undo top buttons; women can remove dressy jewellery, take off a tailored jacket and put on a cardigan, or substitute ballet flats for killer heels.
The above dress codes are time-honoured and traditional. These days, hosts whose planned events are adhering to a theme, or are in unusual venues, are creating their own dress codes, and it is perfectly acceptable to do so. If you have a very clear idea of how you want your party to be, it is essential to communicate this to your guests – you don’t want them turning up in black tie to a country style barn dance… Some examples of these new codes would be phrases like ‘Festival attire’ (super-casual and quirky, wellingtons recommended), ‘Outdoor’ (warm coats, hats, gloves and robust footwear).
Alternatively, hosts might prefer their guests to dress up, but are reluctant to impose the rigid guidelines of, a ‘black tie’ dress code on them. If this is the case, they might specify ‘smart frocks’ or ‘cocktail attire’ to indicate that an effort is required. A catch-all phrase that is designed to indicate that smart, glamorous, flamboyant, or eye-catching clothes are de rigueur is ‘dress to impress’, though be aware that this places a burden of expectation on your guests and some of them may find this command onerous or intimidating.
If you’re holding a party and you really don’t mind what people wear and feel quite relaxed about them turning up in jeans, shorts, flipflops, sports clothes etc, then why not let them off the hook and simply state ‘come as you are’. It will mean that they don’t have to worry about clothes or dressing up and will ensure that they feel super-relaxed.
If you’re consumed with doubt and unsure about what you should wear, you can always ask the hostess (a quick text or email is probably fine, especially if it’s not last minute). If you don’t really know the hostess, see if you know anyone else who’s going and swap notes with them.
Lateness is perhaps the single issue that causes the most complaints, resentment and animosity within offices. Punctuality matters enormously in the world of business, as in everyday life. To be late for an interview, a meeting, a conference, a business lunch or just work, without having a good reason that has been communicated to the relevant parties, is a grave fault and universally considered to be bad manners, because it devalues the importance of other people’s time. Being late is not a sign of importance or great industry. It is a sign of poor organisation, or thoughtlessness, or rudeness.
Run-of-the-mill lateness for work should be accompanied by apologies to colleagues as well as your immediate manager. They may have had to cover for you and have had extra work thrust upon them. The apology should be accompanied by a very brief explanation of why you were late – transport, childcare, domestic emergency etc. Accompany the apology with some demonstration of concern for any impact your lateness may have had on your colleagues.
If you are late for an appointment then it is an urgent priority to get a message through to the person you are meeting (or the lead person, if you are meeting a group) to let them know that you are going to be late. If possible, you should speak to the person to whom this most matters and you should try and give a reasonable estimate of just how late you are going to be. If they are not picking up, then leave a text message, which should be clearly written and fully explanatory. If you are going to be very late, then you must consider whether to cancel or postpone the appointment.
Knowing that you are not going to be at the office in time to greet a visitor is more complicated. You should still alert the visitor as quickly as possible, but you also must brief someone to act on your behalf. Once you find someone at the office to help you out (for example by greeting the visitor and offering tea or other refreshments), then you should contact your visitor and apologise and explain who will be greeting them. You should also give an accurate forecast of when you will arrive. Depending on how late you are running, you should also offer them the opportunity to postpone or cancel the appointment if they so wish.
It is not good manners to ask someone to lie on your behalf, or pass on an inadequate excuse, or force them to invent some wild and unlikely story.
There are some days when you know in advance that you are going to be late. You may have to visit a child’s school, take the car to the garage or attend a dental appointment, for example. Because you know in advance, it’s only polite to ask permission of a manager, and check first with colleagues to ensure that your lateness will not create difficulties for them. Try and give as much notice as possible; telling everyone as you leave the office that you’re going to be late the following morning may lead to bad feelings.
If a change in your personal circumstances – for example a new baby or house move – means that you need to make radical changes to your working hours, you should consult with your employers at the earliest possible opportunity, giving details of what changes are requested, why, and for how long. Unless it’s commercially impossible for the employers to agree, they should do all they can to accommodate these requests.
The persistent latecomer in an office can be a source of much bitterness. If you are the manager, you should address the problem in the first instance by finding out why the offender is repeatedly late – this may need both patience and perseverance. If there is a good reason, you should do your best to help iron out any problems. If the offender doesn’t have a good reason, you should firmly but politely outline why the lateness is unacceptable. Only if the offender shows no signs of changing his or her ways should disciplinary action be contemplated.
The role of colleagues in this sorry saga is a little different. Having no powers of discipline and control, all colleagues can do is exhort latecomers to mend their ways and explain how everyone in the office is adversely affected. This, again, should be done politely. Whether the occasion calls for a quiet word with a diplomatic colleague, or whether it’s a case of everyone pitching in with their own contribution, will depend on the nature and attitude of the offender and all concerned.
One of the few things that all of us learn at a young age is that there is a right way and a wrong way to make an excuse or to tender an apology. To be successful, the excuse must have some basis in truth (the more, the better). It should be used with discretion (not too often) and should sound plausible. It should never be accompanied by misplaced attempts at humour.
Everybody has to make an excuse at some time or another, not least when they are unpunctual, and the best thing they can do is make the excuse with as good grace as possible.
All discussions about transgressions such as unpunctuality should take place in private.
A reasonable excuse should be accepted without rancour or resentment. If the excuse is made repeatedly then there may well come a time when, although the excuse is accepted, a dialogue has to be opened up as to how much longer these difficulties will continue. Discussions may centre around the possibility of establishing alternative hours, of passing responsibility for some work to another person, of granting paid or unpaid leave for a fixed period, or seeing if there are any other ways in which the problem can be solved or ameliorated.
If the excuse is not a reasonable one, then it must be rejected. The manner of this rejection will probably depend on just how unreasonable the excuse is, and the attitude and track record of the offender. It should be remembered, however, that some people make unreasonable or lame excuses simply because they are afraid to reveal the real reason why they are late or have been absent. This can be especially true when private or family life is going awry. If someone who is in all other ways a valued member of the company starts to behave with unaccustomed irresponsibility and offers unlikely excuses, the company needs to reject only the excuses, not the person making them. No company ever gains prestige through rudeness or insensitivity towards clients, customers or employees.
For more information on professional behaviour and impact in the workplace, take a look at our Guide to Business Etiquette.
As the cost of living crisis begins to bite, there are daily reports of increased activity from fraudsters, who are seizing the opportunity to exploit our current economic ills, and are approaching members of the public with sophisticated scams – mimicking texts or emails from HMRC, the energy companies, the NHS and so on.
At times like this it is easy to feel beleaguered in your own home. Your computer and your phones are fast becoming portals into what should be an impregnable fortress. Try as you might to maintain physical security – strong locks and bolts, video cameras, state of the art burglar alarms – you may feel increasingly vulnerable to the online menace.
There is a wealth of good advice available, which we should all note: don’t hand over money until you’ve checked credentials; don’t click links in a text or email from an unknown source; never give banking or personal details to someone you don’t know; never send money to someone you don’t know or trust.
But fraudsters operate in insidious ways and when they engage you in personal contact by phone they may be able to manipulate you. We have all been taught to be polite to strangers, to mind our ps and qs, to listen attentively, to do our best to answer questions honestly. Fraudsters can exploit this bedrock of good manners by engaging us in polite and plausible conversations, which can lull us into a false sense of security and may even lead to us making a fatal error.
You can guard against this vulnerability and still maintain your self-respect and good manners. If you receive an unsolicited call, ensure that you do the following:
• Wherever possible, screen your calls. There’s no rule that dictates that you must answer your phone, so if you see an unfamiliar number on your caller display, let the call go through to voicemail. Genuine callers will leave a message. If an unknown person does leave a message, you can then contemplate it at your leisure, exercise due diligence on Google, and make a calm and rational decision about whether you should respond.
• If you do unknowingly pick up the phone to a scammer, you may well find that they will use small talk to engage you and lull you into a false sense of security. They will use conversational standbys such as enquiries about your health or the weather to make inroads. It is fine to answer a query such as “How are you enjoying this heatwave?”, but you should immediately follow your answer with a polite request: “Who am I talking to?”.
• The primary purpose of phone scammers is to extract information from you – at one extreme this may be bank details; much less obviously they may want to find out about your domestic set-up, your family, your age, work experience and so on. A stranger asking lots of questions on the phone should be a red flag. Try to block the questions by turning the tables and turning interrogator. Politely ask for the caller’s full name, number and credentials, ask for bona fides, ask which country the caller is based in, just keep asking.
• Neither confirm nor deny questions that are put to you by the scammer about your feelings or motivations. They will utilise any opportunity to play on feelings of insecurity, anxiety or greed. If, for example, they ask an apparently blindingly obvious question, for example ‘Do you want to make your money work for you?’ or ‘are you worried about your retirement?’ still respond with a question ‘Why are you asking me about that?’ or ‘It’s not something I generally discuss with strangers.’
•Don’t fall for clichés. Many fraudsters are extremely sophisticated: they speak good English, they do not work in noisy call centres, they are well-spoken and articulate. In the case of fraud, the normal social signals we use to assess people’s credibility are scrambled, so don’t let your guard down just because the caller seems to be on your wavelength.
• Don’t be too trusting of people purporting to call from respectable-sounding institutions, such as HM Government, the DVLA or the Royal Mail. It’s quite acceptable to ask the caller to prove their credentials – perhaps by revealing information about you that only the institution in question would know (when you last filed your tax return, for example). Alternatively, you can always tell the caller that you will call them back on the number listed on their organisation’s official website. Any signs of reluctance for you to go ahead with this proceeding will indicate that this is not a bona fide caller.
• If you do find yourself involved in a conversation, politely ask the caller to slow down so you can make a careful note of their particulars. Indicate that you like to keep a record, so you can discuss the call with your wife/husband/partner/financial adviser. This will not be a popular proceeding for most scammers and will wrong-foot them.
• If you really feel that the evidence it is a scam is overwhelming, terminate the call; it is quite possible to do this politely but firmly. Say “I’m so sorry. I have listened to what you have to say, but I don’t want to take this any further. Thank you for calling. Goodbye” and put the phone down immediately before the caller can respond.
• Some people find it difficult to bring a call with a persistent scammer to an end as they are worried about interrupting or appearing rude. It is always a good idea to have an excuse up your sleeve, so if you’re feeling hectored, badgered or trapped, you can just say something like ‘Oh dear, there’s the doorbell, I’m sorry I’m going to have to go’.
We all mistakes; some of us are just unable to admit it. A refusal to admit you’re wrong, especially when the mistakes and missteps you’ve made are obvious, will ultimately make you look foolish, arrogant and blinkered, and you will be held in contempt. Honesty, integrity and humility are all character traits that are admired, and if you are genuinely able to demonstrate these attributes you will find that you are liked and trusted.
Many of us have the self-awareness to know when we have got something wrong, but identifying an error and acknowledging it are two very different things. There is a widely-held assumption that owning up to your mistakes will make you look weak and foolish. In a world that values smartness and competence, it is considered ignominious to have to admit that you are suffering from a fundamental misconception. A common reaction to being in the wrong is frequently an urge to double down, to obstinately reinforce the error with a performance of conviction. Digging in and refusing to face the truth is a trap that makes any eventual climb-down much more onerous.
Some people do not even get as far as acknowledging their mistake, even to themselves. They want something to be true, and they have invested emotions and their own feelings of self-worth in it being so. If they are ideologues, or passionate believers in certain creeds and theories, they will be more liable to resist the truth. Fundamentally, they do not see themselves as the kind of people who make mistakes and admitting they are fallible is a step too far.
Refusing to recognise your mistake and apologise for it will give you the illusion that you are in control and have the upper hand. But the people around you are your witnesses; they can see that you are wrong and they can also observe that you are resolutely refusing to acknowledge it. Instead of admiring your robust defence of your beliefs, they will conclude that you are blind and deluded and they will begin to see you as obstinate and untrustworthy.
Getting your facts wrong at a dinner party argument and refusing to accept that that is the case will simply make you look foolish. Your fellow guests may decide that you are an obstinate pain in the neck and move on, but the contretemps may leave a slightly bitter aftertaste and loss of respect. Admitting you are wrong is a much more crucial issue when you occupy a public-facing role, or when you are jeopardising your professional reputation. In these cases, you are operating in a high pressure environment and the chorus of disapproval that greets your error may well be vocal and damaging.
Ultimately, your only option – if you want to repair the reputational damage – is to admit you were wrong and apologise for your mistake, for which you must take full responsibility. It is never good enough to grudgingly acknowledge an error and then to minimise its importance, or to be dismissive about its repercussions.
Admitting you were wrong, and apologising for it, will demonstrate that you are capable of being clear-sighted and objective about yourself and your failings. It shows that you care more about honouring the truth than being right, and people will be more likely to trust you to do the decent thing in the future. Research has shown that leaders who express vulnerability and admit their own fallibility are more likely to be highly regarded.
So next time you catch yourself in an error, resist the temptation to dig a deeper hole, and step up and own that you were mistaken. You will soon discover that people will find you much more likeable as a result and, even if your misconceptions don’t have world-changing consequences, a good-natured and easy-going willingness to admit you’re wrong will go a long way towards enhancing all your social interactions.
“There is nothing so unpardonably rude, as a seeming inattention to the person who is speaking to you; though you may meet with it in others, by all means avoid it yourself. Some ill bred people, while others are speaking to them, will, instead of looking at, or attending to them, perhaps fix their eyes on the ceiling, or some picture in the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, their watch chain, or their cane, or probably pick their nails or their noses. Nothing betrays a more trifling mind than this; nor can any thing be a greater affront to the person speaking; it being a tacit declaration, that what he is saying is not worth your attention. Consider with yourself how you would like such treatment, and I am persuaded you will never shew it to others.”
Principles of Politeness and of Knowing the World, by the Late Lord Chesterfield, with Additions by The Rev. Dr John Trusler, 1798
This detailed description of the minutiae of conversational ennui will be familiar to many of us. We’ve all been trapped at social events in a conversation that no longer engages us, and overcome by a desperate urge to extricate ourselves. Clearly, making a major performance of our disengagement is, as is pointed out, extremely rude and to be avoided at all costs. Abruptly announcing that you must move on is also offensive. There must be a better way of making a conversational exit.
Our etiquette experts have put their heads together, and recommend the following strategies:
You need to physically remove yourself from the conversation, so perhaps you could say “I’m going to refresh my drink. Can I get you anything?” If your partner accepts the offer, you can take your time, and only return with a full glass when they are safely ensconced in another conversation.
This will work well at many events, but will not be much use if you’re at a party where you’re being plied with drinks by solicitous waiters. If this is the case, you could cite another obligation, perhaps saying something like “Oh, there’s xxxxx. Please do excuse me, I promised I’d introduce her to xxxxx.”
At events where you feel you’ve been buttonholed by the host, the birthday boy, the guest of honour, or possibly the bride or groom, and are desperate to make an exit, you can hint that they should move on, by sayings something like “I really mustn’t monopolise you – I’m sure there are other people you need to talk to. I just wanted to say thank you/congratulations.” This will politely impel them to circulate.
If you feel that your ear has been well and truly bent, a smart move is to reach out to a passing friend or acquaintance and bring them into the conversational fold. It will help if you can find a shared interest to highlight. You can introduce them to your interlocutor, and perhaps even say something like “we were just talking about Corfu – didn’t you spend some time there last year?”
If you can set the conversational ball rolling, you should be able to discreetly pass on the baton. Stick around for a few minutes to make sure that your reinforcement is fully engaged, then quietly slip away with a muttered “Excuse me, I must just say hello to xxxxxx.”
One very effective way to terminate a conversation is to remind your companion of both your social obligations. It is generally assumed that good guests will circulate at parties, rather than hunkering down for long drawn-out conversations. So if you say something like “Do you think we ought to be mingling?” you may well create a slightly guilty feeling in your conversational partner, who will be reminded that they are not living up to their good guest credentials and feel compelled to move on.
This is the most subtle technique of all. It involves discreetly signalling that the conversation is reaching its natural end, and ideally mitigating this by signing off with a compliment or positive approbation. It requires that you take the initiative and say something like “Well, I’ve really enjoyed hearing about your model train collection” or “It’s been fascinating talking to you – I never realised golf could be so interesting!” Phrases like this distinctly convey a sense of an impending ending – once you have laid the groundwork, it’s perfectly polite to say something like “I really must go and talk to xxxxx.” You will have managed to extricate yourself on an upbeat note without revealing that you are feeling bored or trapped.
Whether you are visiting the theatre or going to a concert this autumn, you will be in a crowded public space and your behaviour will have an impact on other people.
Theatre seats are a costly investment – we read reviews and listen to word of mouth before we take the plunge, but we can never guarantee that our night out is going to be an unqualified success, and we understand that there is always an inherent risk that we will not enjoy the play or concert.
However, there are other impediments to our enjoyment that are gratuitous. Many of us will have had the trauma of seeing our much-anticipated night out being ruined by restless neighbours, compulsive coughing, whispered conversations, mobile phones or rustling sweet papers. These disruptions are entirely avoidable, so brush up on your theatre etiquette, which is also applicable to concerts and operas, and ensure that you’re never the much-resented audience-member that is transgressing:
1. Arrive in good time, ideally at least 15 minutes before the performance begins. This will give you time to buy a programme, visit the loo if necessary, and find your seat while causing minimum disruption to everyone else. Bear in mind that latecomers are not admitted to the auditorium until a suitable break in proceedings, and in some cases will have to wait until the interval.
2. If you’ve got to squeeze your way down a row to get to your seat, repeatedly apologising, smiling and muttering ‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’ will go a long way towards mollifying people who are already comfortably settled in their seats. Traditionally, etiquette dictated that seat-takers always faced the seated person, rather than presenting a back view.
3. When you reach your seat, make sure that bags are stowed away under your seat so that the limited space available is not obstructed. If you are carrying a lot of bags and packages, check if there is a cloakroom facility (available at many venues) where you can check them in.
4. Switch off your mobile phone before the performance begins. This may seem blindingly obvious, and many theatres will make reminder announcements before the curtain goes up, but ringing tones can still be heard from time to time in hushed theatres. It’s maddening for the performers and audience, and the reproachful glances of your near neighbours will also make it intensely embarrassing for you. Bear in mind that you are not allowed to use your phone to take photographs or film during performances.
5. Don’t switch your phone to silent and use it to text during the performance. In a darkened auditorium a phone that is in use is a major light source, which will be an irritating distraction for your neighbours.
6. You really don’t need to speak to your companions during the performance (unless there is an emergency, for example you’re suddenly feeling ill). All your observations or commentary about the play can be reserved (briefly) for the pauses between acts or scene-changes, or ideally for the interval. Whispered conversations are always audible to neighbours.
7. It’s always a good idea to come to a theatre or concert performance equipped with a bottle of water. If you have a ticklish throat you might be able stave off a noisy coughing fit with a sip of water – of course, coughing is sometimes unavoidable, but try and keep it to a minimum.
8. Theatres sell treats, such as sweets and chocolates, and you may well feel tempted to indulge – just bear in mind that noisy rustling of sweet papers can also be a distraction for neighbours. If you feel compelled to unwrap a sweet or chocolate during the performance, try and wait for a suitable opportunity (applause, a particularly cacophonous passage of music, noisy audience laughter).
9. If you’re in the middle of a row, try to return to your seat promptly after the interval; that way you’ll minimise disruption for people sitting nearby.
10. Applaud loudly and generously at the end of the performance – even if you have been disappointed, you owe the performers an acknowledgement.
Following these rules will ensure that you have done your best show consideration to fellow audience-members and respect to performers. Of course, there will always be inconveniences that are beyond your control – if you are unlucky enough to be seated behind an exceptionally tall person, you’ll just have to grin and bear it, and remind yourself that – however obstructive their back view appears to be – they should not be held accountable for their height…
This is the time of year when many parents are forced to come to terms with the fact that their children have become adults and are setting off on their own journey. For many parents, the ritual of the trip in an overladen car to university is a bitter-sweet experience: of course it would be churlish not to participate in your son or daughter’s excitement, but at the same time you are having to face the fact that an era is over and your own family life will never feel the same again.
Confronted with the reality of the empty nest, it is all too easy to refuse to accept that you are now the parent of a newly-fledged adult, and this refusal is manifested in desperate clinginess and curiosity about their independent life. Repeatedly calling your son or daughter, demanding regular updates on the minutiae of their everyday life, is soon going to feel oppressive and intrusive.
You will have to learn to trust your son or daughter, and give them space to explore their newfound freedom. This means modifying your behaviour in the following ways:
• Stand back and let go. Accept that interference in your offspring’s life will be met with irritation, resentment or rejection.
• Lose the habits of a lifetime, and stop treating your grownup offspring as children. This means listening to what they’re saying, taking them seriously, respecting their opinions, and resisting the temptation to lecture, tease or nag.
• As far as possible, keep your opinions to yourself. Quibbling with your offspring over everything from their choice of car to life partner will only alienate them. Everyone should have the freedom to make their own decisions – and, sometimes, mistakes.
• Be supportive. Give your sons and daughters positive encouragement in everything (within reason) they choose to do – even if you can’t understand why they’re doing it...
• Don’t aid and abet regression. You may find your offspring are all too willing to return to the parental home for pampering, and are more than ready to regress into sloppy adolescents. This is a dangerous precedent, and will only happen if you are colluding with them. Instead, ask them to help out around the house and garden, give them tasks and errands, and keep them busy. Don’t offer to do their washing!
• Don’t let them take you for granted. All too often your desire to continue playing a central role in your offspring’s lives can turn you into a doormat. They can rely on you for subsidies, lifts, loans, and much more. If they don’t learn to ask you politely for assistance, and thank you graciously when they receive it, they will not be acquiring essential social skills that will be vital in their adult life.
• Don’t pry. They will not tell you everything, and you must respect their privacy. Looking at their text messages, following them on social media, snooping on Facebook, or peeking at their diaries is simply not acceptable, no matter how desperate you are to know the truth. You just have to hope that, providing you build up a good, mature relationship with your offspring, they will feel able to tell you everything in due course.
• You will always worry about your sons and daughters, but be careful about expressing your anxieties directly to them. All too often, your worry becomes an extra burden, and they may choose not to off-load their problems on you, because they fear your reaction. This may lead to a cycle of secrecy and restraint.
• Try, as far as possible, to take the lead from your offspring when it comes to keeping in touch. Your son or daughter may find daily phone calls oppressive, so it’s probably best to stand back and let the younger generation come to you. Gradually a pattern of communication that is acceptable to all concerned will be established, and you will then be able to play your part in maintaining it.
• Make it clear that you’re always happy to see them, but don’t beg them to come and visit (unless you have a very good reason). They may be very caught up in their own lives, and will see your repeated invitations as needy and demanding. By rejecting your obvious desire to see them they may make themselves feel guilty, and therefore resentful, towards you, and a dangerous vicious circle will be set in motion. Wait for them to come to you.
• Be positive. All the members of your family will need your support and affirmation throughout their lives, so don’t be afraid to give it. Compliment them on their appearance, their new house, their partner’s success. Tell them how proud you are when they get a degree, a new job, a promotion. It’s never a bad idea to show them how much you care.
Crowded pavements, texting pedestrians, speeding bikes, electric scooters, wayward dogs, gargantuan buggies… The list of pedestrian hazards is ever-growing. Simply walking along a busy pavement in a town centre can be a frazzling experience, involving countless irritations, adjustments and accommodations.
The main problem is that many pedestrians are unobservant, lost in their own worlds and unaware of the impact of their behaviour on the people around them. The key to good public manners is to engage with the world. Negotiating a crowded pavement without bumping or jostling fellow-pedestrians requires care and attention.
Follow these simple guidelines and make our pavements a better place:
• Pick up your pace. If your tendency is to saunter along at a snail’s pace, you will inevitably cause frustration if people are stuck behind and cannot overtake (exception is of course made for older people, people who use walking sticks, people with small children and so on).
• Stick to two-abreast. Marching down a pavement shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of friends is an aggressive form of colonisation. There is no room for anybody else, and the result is that oncoming pedestrians are forced to scatter and stand aside to allow the juggernaut to barge past. What could be ruder?
• Mind your mobile. Multi-tasking and thinking all communication too important to ignore for even a few seconds is tempting but self-aggrandising. Realistically almost everything can wait for a few moments. Scrutinising a screen while walking along, especially when wearing headphones, may cause accidents or impede other pedestrians.
• Keep moving. Coming to a sudden halt and standing stock still in the middle of a pavement is clearly hazardous for anyone who is close behind you. If you’ve suddenly opened a revelatory text or had a game-changing brainwave, take a few seconds to sidle over to the side before you lapse into immobility.
• Move aside. If you bump into an acquaintance on the street, move to one side to avoid blocking the way for others. Standing chatting in the middle of the pavement, with streams of pedestrians forced to divert around the encumbrance you’re creating, is the height of bad manners.
• Look out. We’ve all been cut dead on the street by a texting, unfocused, unconscious acquaintance. We know their mind is elsewhere but we still find it a bit hurtful. Try not to be distracted, look at the faces of those around you, engage with your environment, and you will avoid cutting friends dead and being reproached for your unfriendliness.
• Keep dogs on a short lead. Never use a lead that stretches across the width of the pavement, or you will risk entangling pedestrians’ legs. It is important that you keep your dogs under close control on crowded streets, so there is no risk of them jumping up at strangers.
• Be perceptive about pushchairs. Some pushchairs are the size of small tanks and manoeuvring them through crowded streets is quite a challenge. Parents should be hyper-aware of the pace of pedestrians in front or they risk getting too close and barking their ankles. Two pushers abreast, deep in conversation and oblivious to the world, carry all before them, scattering pedestrians as they go. This behaviour is only tolerable on exceptionally wide pavements.
• Be a considerate smoker or vaper. With smoking banned in public places indoors, smoking on the street has become a common practice, and smokers are frequently joined by vapers, whose presence is advertised by billowing clouds of vapour. Smokers and vapers should make sure they congregate in places where they won’t form a major impediment to other pavement-users. It goes without saying that littering the street with cigarette ends is anti-social.
• Beware brollies! If you’re wielding an umbrella, you need to be spatially aware and have some regard for height differences, or you’ll risk poking passing pedestrians in the eye. If you find yourself head-to-head with a fellow umbrella-user, adopt the following strategy: the person on the inside edge should move closer to the wall/buildings, while raising their umbrella to avoid collision; the person on the outside lane should lower their umbrella and edge towards the road.
• Resist grazing. It was once considered the height of bad manners to eat in the street, and it should still be approached with caution. We are seduced by a cornucopia of street food in our towns and cities, but if you can’t resist indulging, it is a good idea to try and find a bench or seat, or at least to stand to the side of the pavement while you are eating. Munching as you walk along is yet another distraction that might impede your movement and awareness.
• Remember, pavements are for pedestrians. While we all accept that pushchairs, wheelchairs and mobility scooters are also entitled to use the pavement, people on bikes or electric scooters should be using the roads or designated bike lanes. If, for any reason, a cyclist is forced to use the pavement, they must behave with the utmost discretion. This means cycling slowly, and giving way to slow-moving walkers. It does not mean hurtling at full speed down the pavement, ringing the bell or shouting obscenities at pedestrians. This behaviour is not only offensive, it is illegal.
• Bin it! Whether you’re eating, drinking, or smoking, it is absolutely imperative that you dispose of all rubbish properly. That means holding on to it until you can find a rubbish bin, and if necessary taking it home with you. Many of our town centres are defiled by litter dropped by inconsiderate pedestrians, so don’t contribute your own rubbish to the blight.
