Category Archives: How To

House Cleaner Etiquette

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By WPA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Now that we’ve talked about all the old fashioned kinds of servants and how to treat your fancy live-in servants, let’s get real and talk about the only kind of “help” we are ever likely to have (if we are lucky!).

  • Clean up your mess! There is much hardee-haring over the idea of cleaning up for your house cleaner, but seriously, man, that person is there to remove dirt, not organize your junk. Clear off surfaces, stash stuff, pull all your makeup and potions off your bathroom counters.
  • Especially don’t leave anything gross out. Dirty undies go in the hamper, not as a surprise under the bed.
  • Stay out of the way. If you can, it’s almost best not to be there at all so that it feels like some helpful brownies have come in and worked their magic, but if you must be home while the cleaner is there, move to the bedroom when they are in the living room and then switch.
  • Don’t hover. They are pros and know what they are doing. If you find fault with the cleaning, either explain before their next visit or find someone new who jives with your expectations.
  • Discuss what the cleaner will and will not do before they get there. Some will do laundry/dishes, others won’t. Keep in mind if you ask them to do anything extra, they will probably charge you extra.
  • You don’t need to tip, but if you use an individual person instead of a service, a “holiday bonus” of the cost of one visit is pretty common. Cleaning services usually don’t send the same person/people each time, so a one time bonus isn’t that useful.
  • It should go without being said that you shouldn’t be rude to, scream at, or otherwise demean your cleaner.
  • This is one service where I don’t think haggling is appropriate. They are a professional and probably have a set price for their service.

How To Be A Respectful Traveler

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VTSPhoneTapHD

Don’t steal important monuments

We’ve already covered some points of hotel and hostel etiquette, but where you sleep is just one aspect of how you travel. If you’re one of those people who books a package tour, gets carted around in a bus and never interacts with anyone actually from the country you’re visiting, fine, keep doing what you do because you probably aren’t self-conscious about how you come off anyway. But for the rest of us, travel is an opportunity to meet new people, see new things, and understand new cultures.

The basic idea is that you need to adapt yourself to the local culture, not the other way around. Do this by researching the area. What are the tipping customs? Do you have dietary restrictions or other medical needs you need to be on top of? Can you learn some basic words in the local language? You don’t have to know everything, but you really have no excuse to not even attempt “hello” and “thank you.” Most people just appreciate the effort, and will do their best to help you out if they know you’re trying.

Also, do you need to dress differently? That last one definitely (unfortunately) applies to women. I’m going on my honeymoon to Sri Lanka and have been stocking up on light but covering clothing, since tank tops and shorts don’t really fly there. I could be all pissed about the pervasive idea that women’s bodies are inherently sexual and thus crude, and the double standard when compared to men, but I’d rather just buy some linen pants and hang out in Buddhist ruins. I’m not ready to start any revolutions yet.

Aside from knowing the rules and languages of where you’re traveling, and in general just being polite and considerate, there are also some larger political things to consider. For instance, there’s the issue of “voluntourism” and how helpful a group of well-meaning but poorly-trained westerners attempting to build houses in a remote Costa Rican village actually is. Much has been said of this, but this essay sums up the core issue well:

Our mission while at the orphanage [in Tanzania] was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure. It is likely that this was a daily ritual. Us mixing cement and laying bricks for 6+ hours, them undoing our work after the sun set, re-laying the bricks, and then acting as if nothing had happened so that the cycle could continue.

This really does have to do with etiquette, because when you travel, you are a guest in another country. You are welcome to explore and learn and do what you want, but like any good guest, you should be leaving the place as you found it, perhaps even better than you found it. And being rude or ignoring local customs or making people rebuild your well-intentioned charity project is not leaving it as you found it.

 

Please send us your etiquette questions! info@uncommon-courtesy.com

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Hotel and Hostel Etiquette

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via Wikimedia Commons

With summer travel time coming up, we thought it would be good to have a refresher on some of the finer points of travel etiquette.

When staying at a hotel, there are a few things to remember:

  • Be quiet in the hallways, especially late at night.
  • Be respectful in shared public spaces- it isn’t your living room. Clean up after yourself and keep conversation volume to an indoor level.
  • Don’t let your children go wild- make sure they are supervised and aren’t harassing other guests.
  • Don’t leave your room a disgusting mess for housekeeping to clean up.
  • If there is a problem with your reservation or your room, be firm but don’t berate or yell at hotel staff.
  • In the breakfast room, notify staff if you spill something, don’t hog tables if they are limited, don’t leave your dishes out if you are supposed to bus them
  • Don’t steal from the hotel (duh) (toiletries are totally fine)
  • If you are going to tip, do it every day as housekeeping staff rotates daily and leave a note so they know what it is (only 25-35% of Americans tip housekeeping staff at hotels and it is not strictly required)

All of the above goes for hostels, with a few more things:

  • Be extra respectful of sleeping people in dorm style rooms.
  • If it’s late an everyone is in bed and you come into the room, please turn off the light.
  • If you use the hostel’s kitchen, make sure you clean up after yourself.
  • Do not have sex in a shared room!
  • If you have to leave early, pack up your stuff the night before to minimize noise in the early morning.
  • With shared bathrooms, keep your showers short.
  • Keep your phone/alarm close to you, so you can’t turn it off when it goes off. No snooze button.
  • Don’t hog the computer

Tell me, do you leave a tip for housekeeping?

Should We Even Bother With Social Media Etiquette?

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What Would Tom Do?

What Would Tom Do?

I keep thinking that there needs to be a guide to social media etiquette, because there are some people that are just insufferable, but I can hear the backlash now: “If someone’s annoying just stop following them!” “You can block people you know.” “I found a complicated way to mute everything someone says but still make it look like you’re listening.” Yes, we all know that social media is pretty optional and if you don’t like looking at a hundred photos of your elementary school best friend’s new baby you can just unfriend her. But social media has also wedged its way into our lives to a point that I felt actively left out of my chosen career by not being on Twitter. Since many of us feel strong societal pulls to engage in social media, let’s see if there are ways to make it a slightly nicer place.

  • Try not to post all the time– Of course one of the main reasons everyone is on Facebook or Twitter is so we can share articles, photos, and thoughts with each other, but you never want to clog someone else’s feed. This happens on Twitter a lot, especially when someone not only posts a lot, but retweets every single response they get.
  • Don’t get into arguments on Twitter – This sort of goes for Facebook, but at least there you don’t have character limits, and can let your arguments be as wordy and thought out as you want. I have never seen an argument on Twitter turn out well for either party, no matter how intelligent the argument, because there is just no way to achieve any nuance in 140 characters. You’re going to come off sounding like you don’t know what you’re talking about, even if you do, so just avoid it. No one ever thinks “wow, he’s super smart, but I wish he would argue more on Twitter.”
  • Don’t be a mommyjacker– This doesn’t just go for moms! We all know that person who turns every post into something about their baby, but people do this for all sorts of topics and it’s frustrating as hell. Try not to comment on photos or statuses with something completely unrelated to the topic, or to make it all about you.
  • Ask permission before tagging photos of people/quoting people– I know you desperately want to post that photo of you and your little brother in the bathtub together for Throwback Thursday, but not everybody wants everything they do online. I’ve been really frustrated when people post something on Twitter that I’ve said to them in private, or posted tons of unflattering photos from a drunken night out. And yes, you can always untag yourself, but the photo is still there. So maybe send your friend a quick text asking them if it’s okay, or don’t get mad if you post something and they ask you to remove it. This goes double for posting photos of babies and children, since they can’t really tell you they don’t want their photo broadcast to the world.
  • Don’t be on your phone/computer/tablet all the time– This expands a bit to general social etiquette, but the number of times I’ve been out to dinner and something funny happened in the conversation and someone whips out their phone and says “omg I’m tweeting that” is entirely too many. This is not the fault of social media or millenials or anything–my grandfather was the type to constantly make us re-enact candid moments so he could take photographs, instead of just living in the moment. But if you’re with other people, try to stay engaged with them, instead of turning to your phone or tablet or camera.

What happens on social media that frustrates you? Tell us!

Elevator Etiquette

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I find large banks of elevators mildly terrifying. [via Wikimedia Commons]

Like door etiquette, elevator etiquette seems like it should be self-explanatory. But that appears not to be the case, so here are some tips:

  1. Try to avoid taking the elevator to the 2nd or 3rd floor if you are capable of using the stairs and if there are even stairs (my office building doesn’t have easily accessible stairs, so I often take the elevator to the 2nd floor.)
  2. If you do know that you are getting off at a lower floor, try to get on the elevator last.
  3. If you are next to the door and someone needs to get off, step off the elevator to let them pass before getting back on.
  4. When there is a crowd waiting for the elevator, do your best to let those who have been waiting longest board first.
  5. Keep conversation to a minimum, no one wants to listen to you and your pal.
  6. Face the door. Anything else makes people uncomfortable.
  7. If there is someone running for the elevator and it isn’t very full, be kind and hold the door.
  8. If there is an elevator operator (some buildings still have them!), clearly tell them what floor you are going to and thank them when you get off.
  9. Don’t press (or let your bratty kid) press all of the buttons.
  10. Let people getting off the elevator off before you try to get on.