Have you tried to exit an elevator and dealt with frantic people rushing onto the elevator as the door opens?

Have you been seated at a banquet table and dealt with fellow diners confused about where to pass food?

These types of situations motivated me to promote “the right way to easy etiquette.” Based upon this premise I organized a simple set of rules that make it easier to remember both business and social etiquette, basic behavioral guidelines to build upon. Here are two common situations with an implementation of  “the right way.”

Business situation: When attending a networking event attach your name badge near your right shoulder. Since your meeting is located on an upper floor you walk on the right side of the lobby to the elevator. Next, you wait for the elevator on the right side of the door opening. Upon your arrival you notice an inviting food buffet but you network first and eat second; you keep your right hand free allowing you to shake hands. At the end of the event the sedan car arrives and you give first choice to your manager: the right rear seat is the seat of honor.

Social situation: When attending a neighborhood party that includes a casual dinner you approach the right side of the chair and seat yourself. As you face the table you quickly identify your place setting by the water goblet, a dominant part of the place setting always on the upper right side. You notice a breadbasket in front of you and pass it to your right. At the end of the meal your hostess asks you to help clear the table and you both proceed to remove plates from the right side.

“The Right Way to Easy Etiquette” Basics

1.  Attach your name badge near your right shoulder

2.  Stand to the right of an elevator door to enter or exit; right side on an escalator

3.  Walk on the right side of a lobby or passageway

4.  Keep your right hand free for handshaking

5.  Right rear seat in a sedan car is the seat of honor

6.  Approach the right side of a chair to be seated

7.  Identify your place setting by the water goblet on the right side

8.  Pass food to your right at the table

9.  Servers’ best practice is to remove food from the diners’ right side

10. What is the right way to chew gum? Never in public!

Stay right, think right and do right!

Master the basics of “the right way to easy etiquette” and you are on your way to making etiquette part of your life, feeling comfortable and confident as you build your business and social skills.

And much love to lefties, especially my big brother!

Copyright Priscilla Murtha 2016

Contact Priscilla:

Email: p@protocolbypriscilla.com

Website: protocolbypriscilla.com

Phone: 727 551 0203

Priscilla Murtha, M.S.

12/03/14

Giving may be good for the soul, but the oft-awkward details of increasingly complex social mores can be a strain on the brain. Things like …

Can you give something to the boss without looking like an apple-polisher? Is a bottle of wine acceptable for every occasion? What about bestowing bundles of Aunt Edna’s Coconut-Walnut Brownie Surprise? Sweet, but what if folks suffer from allergies? What about income-inequality issues? Your token offering of cute penguin coffee mugs looks low-rent when your friends are flinging around iPhone 6s like they’re going out of style … not that that would ever happen.

Anyway, to help out this time of year — and because we don’t know the answers, either — we took such uncomfortable gift-giving/receiving situations and ran them by a few etiquette experts.

We spoke with Mimi Raghian, founder of the Northern California School of Etiquette in Los Altos (www.norcaletiquette.com); Sue Fox, president of Etiquette Survival (www.etiquettesurvival.com); and Lizzie Post, Emily Post’s great-granddaughter and an expert at the Emily Post Institute (www.emilypost.com).

They’re giving. Feel free to take. You can thank them later.

LET’S TAKE IT FROM THE TOP. TO GIVE, OR NOT TO GIVE — TO THE BOSS?

Raghian: The correct protocol is that the boss should buy all the employees gifts. Not the other way around. It might be OK under certain circumstances — maybe if you’ve been working a long time with that person. Even so, give nothing personal. Opt for books or maybe a picture frame for his or her desk.

Fox: It’s generally not advisable to give your boss a gift. You may look like you’re trying to curry favor or, worse, bribing them. If you do feel a gift is in order, maybe as a thank you for a recent staff bonus, discuss with your co-workers about a group gift.

WHAT ABOUT GIFTS TO CO-WORKERS?

Fox: It’s OK, as long as the gifts are modest. If you’re only giving to a select few at work, do it discreetly so others’ feelings aren’t hurt.

GIFTS OF ALCOHOL WERE ONCE A GO-TO NORM. MAYBE A BAD IDEA IF SOMEONE MIGHT BE IN RECOVERY?

Raghian: You don’t give somebody wine or alcohol unless you know that person well. It’s not necessarily that they have a problem. They may not drink for religious or health reasons.

Post: Most people who abstain know how to handle it when it happens. I spent a good two and a half years where I abstained. I didn’t mind if someone gave me a bottle of wine, because it was something I could have on hand if people came over and wanted a glass. But if you don’t know the person well, probably not the best idea.

WHAT ABOUT FOOD GIFTS? SHOULD WE BE AWARE OF ALLERGIES OR SPECIAL FOOD NEEDS?

Post: You can easily spiral into not wanting to give anything this time of year for fear of offending someone one way or another, like not giving your famous chocolate chip cookies because you’re worried someone’s allergic to chocolate. If I have a friend who I know is allergic to nuts, I’ll make a special batch without the nuts. But generally, the treats I give out, I write the ingredients on the gift card. That said, It may be best to go with as safe a gift as possible. Some will say it’s cliché, but some really nice soaps, a beautiful candle, herb-infused olive oils — always a great go-to.

WHAT ABOUT UPPING THE ANTE? IT STARTS WITH TOKEN GIFTS BETWEEN FRIENDS, THEN SOMEONE BEGINS GIVING PRICEY ITEMS, MAKING YOURS PALE IN COMPARISON. DO YOU HAVE TO SPEND MORE NEXT TIME?

Post: Absolutely not. You stay at what your budget is. Never feel like you have to compete or “up the ante” on a gift because someone else did.

Raghian: To me, when you think about price — either way — it defeats the whole meaning of a gift, of something coming from the heart. Just enjoy their gift. They’re probably doing it to be nice, not just to impress you. And if they are, they’re probably not really your friends anyway.

Fox: No matter what they give, make your selection (of a gift for them) according to your best judgment, wrap it nicely and don’t worry about how much you didn’t spend.

YOU GET A GIFT UNEXPECTEDLY FROM SOMEONE WITH WHOM YOU DON’T USUALLY EXCHANGE PRESENTS. DO YOU SCRAMBLE TO RECIPROCATE, OR JUST SAY THANKS?

Post: Gift giving doesn’t have to be reciprocal. Rather than fudge around saying things like, “Oh, your gift hasn’t arrived in the mail yet,” just focus on the gift you’ve received and appreciate the generosity.

WHAT IF FRIENDS GIVE YOU SOMETHING YOU HAVE, OR YOU DON’T WANT OR NEED? DO YOU TELL THEM?

Post: Oh, no! Never, ever say you don’t really need this. Accepting it in the moment is the best thing you can do. Later on, you might call and say, “Beth, your coffee maker was such a great gift and clearly you knew exactly what we needed, but we had just purchased a new one of our own. Would you mind terribly if I exchanged it?” That way you’re still appreciative and being honest, and it won’t be awkward when she sees a different coffee maker at your house.

Raghian: They went out and bought that thing just for you. Even if you have it, look at it as a nice gesture. Too often we look at things merely as an item to add to our stuff. Look at it like someone did something nice for you. You want to make it positive energy, not negative. It’s as important to be a good receiver as well as a good giver.

Fox: Some people may think it’s dishonest to act as though we’re happy with a gift when we’re not. But it’s demeaning to a person if you act displeased. You should always show joy when someone takes the time to give you something (even if it’s a gift card). It is never a good idea to be too candid in this situation, even if it is a family member or close friend. You do not want to look ungrateful. Be gracious and thank them for the gift.

That said, once you receive a gift, it’s yours to do with as you see fit. The giver no longer has a right to ask what you did with it, though it happens. If you decide to “regift” the gift, be cautious. The notion of regifting is distasteful to many people. Others think of it as recycling, being practical and thrifty.

Ultimately, etiquette is about making others feel comfortable. You do not want to have any hurt feelings. If your great aunt happens to come for a visit, yes, go ahead and put out the ornate purple vase she gave you for Christmas. The goal is being gracious and making others feel appreciated.

Contact Angela Hill at ahill@bayareanewsgroup.com, or follow her on Twitter @GiveEmHill.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/My%20Town/ci_27033408/A-guide-to-holiday-giftgiving:-Tips-from-etiquette-experts

The symptoms are universal: There’s a sudden gasp for air and an involuntary utterance of “uh-oh,” followed by an instant surge of heat rushing over the body, increased heart rate, dizziness, nausea and an overwhelming desire to dig a hole, crawl in that hole, put a large rock over the top, maybe decorate with some wallpaper and nice drapes and send out for sushi because you’ll want to stay in that hole a very, very long time.

Such are the measurable physiological and psychological responses that occur upon accidentally sending a steamy text meant for your hot girlfriend to your church minister instead. Or Google chatting more than one person at a time — perhaps your mom plus an important client — and mistaken sending the client your sassy critique of the latest “Real Housewives” episode. Or, possibly worst of all, tapping the dreaded “reply all” button and propelling a snarky reference about your supervisor’s body odor — meant only as an inside joke between a couple of pals — companywide, including your boss’s inbox. Quick, someone get the shovel.

A few years back, Zoe Francis, a Pleasanton freelance writer, accidentally sent an email to her boss in which she referred to him as a distinctive type of feminine hygiene product.

“I thought I would die when I sent that note,” she said. “The second I hit ‘send,’ I knew I had made an egregious error. Luckily, he did not kill me or fire me.”

Slow learners
You’d think we’d all know better by now. After all, email is hardly new, and most everyone’s gotten the hang of smartphones, texting and social media. Yet the speed of modern communication combined with an itchy trigger finger on “send” often gets us into all manner of cyber mischief.

Luckily for Francis, this mishap came out OK. When her boss got that note, he strolled ever so slowly to her desk. “He wasn’t laughing,” Francis said. “But he understood the error and took it extremely well. Quite frankly, it was a bit of a turning point in our relationship — a wee bit for the better, oddly enough.”

Online mishaps can certainly be funny — an embarrassment of glitches, fodder for jokes at the company picnic or the college reunion. Who can forget the “reply-all-pocalypse” of last November when New York University student Max Wiseltier received an email from college administrators about a tax form, which he tried to forward to his mom saying, “Do you want me to do this?” A slip of the mouse later and Wiseltier had sent that simple query to all his fellow 39,979 students on the Listserv. Thousands upon thousands of them then replied-all back, mocking him, adding jokes and comments, turning the innocent mistake into an Internet phenomenon and getting Wiseltier on everything from ABC News to Jimmy Kimmel.

But serious consequences can happen, too. Jobs have been lost, relationships altered. Email “storms” — when people “reply all” to “reply all” messages over and over, multiplying like rabbits in everyone’s inboxes — can overload servers and shut down critical systems. Some research has shown that at least 15 percent of an average office worker’s day is spent on email, and 5 percent of those received are of the “reply all” variety.

These mishaps have become such a problem, some versions of Microsoft’s Outlook email systems provide a way to disable/enable the evil “reply all” button. Applications, such as Sperry Software’s Reply to All Monitor, are on the market, providing pop-ups that ask “Are you sure?” when you start to respond to multiple recipients. And Gmail offers an “undo send” button and the option of setting a five- to 30-second delay in your outbound messages, so you have a small window to fix a mistake.

Still, programs can only do so much to mitigate user error. There’s no pop-up window for stupid.

Check twice, click once
Thom VanValkenburg, 32, of Martinez works for an engineering firm in Oakland and has heard plenty of email horror stories.

“So I’m really, really careful,” he said. “I pay close attention to whom I’m sending to. Another problem is if you are too quick to press ‘send,’ you might forget there’s an attachment that you might not want to forward. That can be dangerous.”

His safeguard technique is to write up emails, then set them off to the side for a while and take a fresh look before hitting “send.”

“Even just a couple of minutes gives you a new take on it, making sure you said things correctly,” he said. Good advice. But mistakes still happen to the most careful among us. And once you have made a big one, then what? How do you recover?

“You should face the music,” says Sue Fox, Pleasanton-based etiquette expert and author of “Business Etiquette for Dummies.” “Take a deep breath, stay put and face the consequences honestly and apologetically. Possibly you can use a little humor, but be careful you don’t make the offense worse.

“If you’ve made an online faux pas,” she added, “the worst thing you can do is disappear, change your email address, close your Twitter and Facebook accounts, vow to move out of town, assume an alias, and never communicate with that person or group of people again as long as you live.” In other words, digging a hole just gets you in deeper.

• Honesty is always the best policy.
• Most people will give you another chance to redeem yourself. You’re much better off taking responsibility for your blunder than blaming it on someone or something else.
• Respond with a written apology. Do not make a lot of excuses. Make it short and sweet and end the conversation online.
• Some e-mail annoyances and embarrassing missent messages are simply the result of taking too little time to think. Pleasanton business etiquette expert Sue Fox offers some tips on avoiding online faux pas:
• Always double-check the list of recipients, especially if the message says something negative.
• Don’t use e-mail to lambaste a colleague, and especially don’t copy others on the message. That’s tantamount to chewing someone out in front of a room full of his peers.
• Disagreements or discipline are best handled in person or at least over the phone.
• If you receive a scathing e-mail, resist the urge to write a similarly scathing message in return. Take the high road. Offer the olive branch, or at the very least, distract the other person by making him wonder why you haven’t responded.
• Never, ever write something in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want published in the newspaper or publicly online. Even if you send them to people you trust, e-mails that contain sensitive, mean, or potentially embarrassing information have a way of being forwarded beyond your original audience.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_23091834/how-deal-reply-all-mishaps-and-other-online?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com

Sidebar: http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_23091078/cyber-netiquette-tips-avoid-e-mail

Follow Angela Hill on Twitter.com/giveemhill, or read her Sunday Give ‘Em Hill column.