Tag Archives: Etiquette

How To Handle Yourself In A Mosh Pit

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5030_576583714479_6231011_nWhen I was 15, mosh pits were my life. Many weekends my friends and I would take the subway out to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and jump around and flail our arms in a circle and sometimes even punch a guy or jump off the stage. It was all very there’s-no-conflict-in-my-life-but-I-have-ennui-I-guess.

Twelve years later, I still join the occasional mosh pit, and despite what they look like from the outside, there is order to the chaos. In the last one I was in, I was sidechecked and careened to the floor, my purse exploding all over. At least five different moshers stopped what they were doing and helped me recover my belongings. Then we all brushed ourselves off and continued enjoying the show. Isn’t that nice?

However, there are the assholes. The people who think it’s an excuse for an actual fight. While it’s one thing to walk away with a bruise and smile, I can guarantee you that 95% of the audience would like to keep their teeth intact. So here are some tips on how to make the experience pleasant.

1. If you see someone go down, help them. Do not continue trampling someone on the floor. They are not down there because they are “lame” and “can’t handle it,” they are there because sometimes it’s hard to keep your balance when everyone is kicking and jumping around you.

2. Apologize if you actually hurt someone. If you’re already in a mosh pit, you understand there is risk of injury. But there’s a difference between feeling someone’s elbow in your back and getting a fist to the face. Take a second to make sure anyone you hit hard is actually alright.

3. No selfies in the Mosh Pit. Seriously I saw this happen once. A couple took out their phone and IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PIT started taking photos of themselves. Basically, don’t do anything in a mosh pit but mosh.

4. Do not stage dive feet first. You will only kick some poor soul in the head and most likely be dropped on your ass. And do your best to keep your feet up as high as you can.

5. Do not stage dive if no one knows you’re going to do it. Countless times I have seen some youth rush to the stage, jump up, and immediately jump out without grabbing anyone’s attention. This usually happens on larger or oddly-shaped stages, or just when everyone is naturally looking at the lead singer and the stage diver jumps out from the side. All that happens in this situation is that you land on a bunch of people’s heads, risk breaking necks, and either fall to the floor or make everyone have to push you up from their shoulders. The best way to go about it is take a few seconds on the stage, make sure a few people are looking in your direction and know you’re going to jump, and go head-first into their upturned hands.

6. Similarly, don’t try to crowd surf from the back. No one in front of you knows you’re coming.

7. Do not just jump into the tall people. As one tall friend of Uncommon Courtesy says, “just because I am tall does not mean I want you have to look at me like I’m a ham on a cartoon desert island.” Plus, if you aim for one person, that’s just one person trying to support your weight, instead of maybe 5-6 people of average height.

8. Do not actually punch. Fists are made, arms are windmilling, but don’t just jump in and start actually beating people up. I’ve seen people actually single out other moshers and just start punching them, and then act like it’s all part of the scene. Don’t be that guy.

How to be a Good Guest

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By Frederick Daniel Hardy (scan of painting) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

If you are a likeable person, sometimes you will be invited over to someone’s house for a meal, a party, or even for an overnight or multiple day visit. Here are some tips to ensure you will be invited back:

  • Always RSVP and honor your RSVP, aka don’t be a flake. Technically, etiquette says that you must accept all invitations as long as you don’t have a conflict. Personally I think having a date with your Netflix counts as a conflict. Also if you do have to cancel, try to make another plan.
  • Show up on time(ish). For a big, general party, this obviously isn’t as important. But for something like a dinner at someone’s house, you need to be pretty close to the time stated. THOUGH! You shouldn’t be there EXACTLY on time. Try aiming for 10-15 minutes late so you the hosts get an extra few minutes to finish setting up. For extremely close friends, you can be earlyish, but be prepared to help out.
  • Bring something! A hostess gift is a small present you bring to give the person throwing the party. Bottles of wine, boxes of chocolates, a jar of jam are all good ideas. Flowers aren’t recommended as much because the host/ess has to deal with them right then and there, but I think they are still nice. Hostess gifts are for the hostess, so don’t expect that they will pop open the wine then and there, they may have specific wines planned to complement a meal, though they often will. Obviously this type of advice is more for a dinner party, but even for a general house party, you should probably bring something, though in that case, I would expect for it to be eaten/drunk at the party.
  • Be good company! Part of your duty of being a guest is making a party a success. That means being pleasant to all the other guests (this is where the reciting times tables to dinner partners you can’t stand comes from in Jaya’s post about turning the tables– you want to give the impression you are having a good time) and doing your best to mingle.
  • If you really want to impress your hosts, send a quick thank you email/text/note(super fancy!) the next day to tell them how much fun you had.
  • If you are visiting for a couple of days, clean up after yourself, offer to help out with chores, perhaps cook or treat your hosts to a meal, and definitely send a thank you note! Also try to remember that fish and guests start to get old after 3 days, so try not to intrude on your friend’s hospitality too much. [INDIAN FISH STAYS GOOD IN THE FRIDGE FOR AT LEAST A WEEK, HOW DARE YOU-Jaya]
  • There is actually a DEBATE in the etiquette world about what to do with your sheets when you leave, making the bed vs stripping it. Just ask your host what they prefer!
  • If you are staying for a long time, try to do some things on your own. My mom once had a friend visit her in New York City and the guest spent the week on the couch watching TV. When she could have, you know, seen New York.

I Read a 500 Page Emily Post Biography So You Don’t Have To

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Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners by Laura Claridge is a fascinating in-depth biography of our favorite etiquette expert, Emily Post. Very in-depth and looong. So I have compiled twenty of the most interesting facts about this woman who was so much more than just an etiquette expert.

1. Her father participated in the building of the Statue of Liberty base and she played inside as a girl. She also attended the opening of the Statue.

2. Her father was a famous architect who basically built Tuxedo Park, NY.

3. Was called the best banjoist in fashionable society when she was young. Banjos were trendy in the 1890s.

4. Motto was “toujours la politesse, jamais la verite” meaning “always courtesy, never the bare truth.”

5. She had a terrible loveless marriage and was divorced. As a dissatisfied wife, she took up writing and was a successful novelist.

6. She was a guest at Mark Twain’s 70th bday party.

7. After her divorce, she helped with interior design for her father’s architect friends and was somewhat of an amateur architect herself. She even wrote a famous book on architecture.

8. She started writing non fiction as an advice columnist but she was originally discouraged from writing about etiquette publishers thought it would be tedious for her.

9. She took a road trip across the US in 1915 with her sons and wrote about it. This was before there were good roads and they were constantly getting stuck in the mud.

10. Her son received the first award conferred on an American pilot during WWI.

11. Emily liked to claim that everyone had begged her to write etiquette, it was more something that was offered to her and she took on bc she found the existing books so bad.

12. She wrote the first edition Etiquette longhand in a year and a half. Published in July 1922, Etiquette originally cost $4 (abt $45 today).

13. Emily was listed as one of Life magazine’s 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

14. Statistics say that Etiquette was the second most stolen book from public libraries, after the bible through the end of the 20th century.

15. She was an activist against prohibition.

16. She hosted an etiquette radio show during the 1930s and loved being on the radio.

17. Was not above some snobbishness: when the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were touring the US, she said he should be addressed as royal highness and she should be addressed as “you.”

18. As an older woman, she had a closet full of red shoes.

19. After WWII she worked to bring Jewish orphans to the United States.

20. Didn’t care about elbows on the table and would regularly put hers on the table at fancy parties.

Etiquette Urban Legends

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There are no alligators in the NYC sewers, so don’t believe these etiquette urban legends either. By Ludovic Bertron from New York City, Usa (Urban Legend? Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s amazing to us how many etiquette “rules” there are out there that have no basis in any etiquette book nor which are particularly logical. Here are some:

  • You have a year to send a thank you note after the wedding. Though guests have up to a year after the wedding to send a gift, a year for thank you notes is not true. So get that out of your head! Thank you notes should be sent promptly after receiving any gift, though with a wedding you have a bit more leeway because of the volume of gifts. Make it easy on yourself and send thank you notes for gifts received prior to the wedding as they come in.

  • At a fancy dinner or restaurant you will be given ten different forks and won’t know how to use any of them. This legend is a holdover from Victorian times when people did indeed use tons of silverware. Nowadays you will only have a couple of pieces, or the waiter might bring you something new for each course. When presented with multiple forks, start from the outside and work in.

  • You need to buy a gift/give money that is equal to the cost of your dinner at a wedding reception. AKA cover your plate. This is ridiculous. How are you supposed to know how much the dinner cost? And why should someone’s choice to have a lavish wedding result in a more expensive present than someone with a more modest affair? Buy within your budget and according to your closeness with the couple.

  • You should never talk about money in polite company. This is true to a degree, maybe don’t talk about it at a dinner party with strangers. But certainly discuss money and finance with your children- how else will they learn? And we should all be discussing salaries and rent with close friends so everyone will know if they are getting ripped off. Secrets help the man keep us down.

  • At a dinner party, you must try some of everything, lest you come off as rude to the host. Trying everything is good eating advice in general (you might like new things!) but “rude” might be pushing it. If you are allergic to endive, or know for sure you don’t like it, don’t eat it! And if someone asks you can say you just don’t like endive. That’s not a comment on the host.

  • RSVPs: some people think you only need to respond if you are coming, some people think you only need to respond if you are not coming. You must RSVP yes or no to any invitation, how is the host supposed to know which method you are following otherwise? And unless it’s a super informal get together that you’ve been invited to through Facebook or something similar, do not RSVP “maybe.”

  • You should stick your pinky out when drinking tea. You may think this looks fancy and proper, but it’s not! While it’s one thing if your pinky naturally juts out a bit when you hold a cup, sticking it straight out is considered an affectation (damn that New Money) and honestly, just looks ridiculous.

  • Etiquette is all about following rules and if you forget something you are an awful person. Etiquette is more about helping other people feel comfortable, and one of the most important etiquette rules is that it is more rude to point out someone’s rudeness than to break whatever rule in the first place.

Yes, You Can Turn Down A Job Interview

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Work for more than bananas [Via philcampbell]

Work for more than bananas [Via philcampbell]

I know what you’re thinking. We’re still in a recession or something, right? Why on earth would you turn down a job interview? But the truth is, people are liars, and sometimes jobs are not what they seem. Maybe you thought you were applying for one type of position, and after a phone interview discovered it was something completely different. Maybe it’s something you like but too far away/crappy benefits/something else legitimate. Whatever the reason, sometimes you need to take yourself out of the running.

Firstly, you need to figure out whether you actually want to cancel, and there are different schools of thought. Ask A Manager says if you’re 100% sure you don’t want the job (and let’s assume this is after a phone interview or something where you know they’re interested and you’ve gotten more information than whatever the initial job posting says), you shouldn’t take the interview, as you’re taking an interview slot away from someone who may really want it, and wasting both your and the interviewer’s time. However, Forbes says you should still go, because it may be an opportunity for networking or just practicing your interview skills, or the job may surprise you. We can’t make that decision for you.

If you do decide to cancel, first, be prompt. As soon as you know it’s not right for you, say something. It’s just a lot nicer than calling an hour before your interview and saying “you know what? Sorry.” And if possible, do this over the phone, though honestly most correspondence is done over email these days. Finally, be honest about your reasons, though you don’t have to go into a lot of detail. Sometimes the reasons are concrete (you’re moving far away), and sometimes they’re not (you just don’t think it’s a good fit).

You can say so about either of these things. If it’s more on the side of “it’s just not what I’m looking for,” use your email/phone call as an opportunity to educate them as to why. Once, I interviewed for a job that would pay a lot, but it was “freelance” pay so I would have had to pay all the taxes, and there was no health insurance or paid vacation/sick time. I tried to negotiate on this to no avail. Once I decided that I wanted to cancel our schedule in-person interview, I emailed them, thanking them for the opportunity, but that “upon further review of the position and compensation” it wasn’t the right fit for me. Hopefully they were able to pick up on the fact that you’d need to pay someone a hell of a lot more than what they were offering if there was no health insurance.

Have you ever turned down an interview? Did you ever go to an interview only to find the office/person/job to be absolutely ridiculous? Tell us!