DEAR MISS MANNERS: I hope you will weigh in on a situation that has caused quite a hubbub in our community. At public meetings, a member of our school board knits. It seems rude to me to be preoccupied when you are supposed to be listening to reports from the staff or comments from the public.
Others defend her with outcries of, “You’re dissing women’s art!” or, “Some people are kinesthetic learners.”
It just seems rude to me — like she’s not giving them her full attention because her needlework is more important. I can understand it at a coffee klatch, but when you are on the dais, it seems a bad idea.
GENTLE READER: Are we sure this is not Trustee Defarge’s preferred form of note-taking?
Miss Manners has not been to a school board meeting in years, and reads that they have gotten a good deal more bloody-minded than they were in her day.
Both public and private school boards conduct their business under rules derived from some combination of law and policy — and almost always include some etiquette rules. What may be acceptable to one body is therefore not always true of another.
But paying attention is certainly always good public policy. To Miss Manners’ thinking, this is more about bearing and focus than about what one’s hands are doing, which makes knitting easier to condone than constantly being on one’s phone.
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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a receptionist at a surgical center who checks in many patients each day. On occasion, the person I am checking in turns out to be a doctor, who often becomes offended that I had not addressed them as “doctor” rather than by their name.
There is not any indication of the title on their driver’s license or insurance card (I have checked!) and this is usually the only information I have about them, so I am unsure how they think I would know.
These doctors get so upset, and it sets us off on the wrong foot. How can I repair the unavoidable insult I keep repeating?
GENTLE READER: Anyone who graduated medical school should be smart enough to figure out that there is no way for you to know without being told.
But doctors are people, and some are overly sensitive about the respect that is their due — if not perhaps as sensitive to the respect owed to other members of the staff.
The challenge is to engage the rest of their brains, and it is a job that should fall to your boss, who likely has a few titles of their own. Your request is innocent enough — that doctors be told, when introducing themselves, to include their titles so that the support staff can then properly address them.
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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my family and I received the check at a restaurant, I was puzzled to find a line for the server’s tip, but also a line for the chef’s tip. I don’t think I’ve seen that before, though we go to many lovely restaurants. What is the protocol in such a situation? Is this a new practice?
GENTLE READER: It puzzles Miss Manners that you would consider this an example of something a lovely restaurant would do. As to the protocol, businesses are free to ask for money for the services they provide — it is called a bill — but it is not etiquette’s job to help them.
