Retro Voices on the Etiquette of Call Waiting and Voicemail

"No. We're not busy.  We've just been sitting here screening our calls on the answering machine.  Hysterically funny!  What are you up to, dear?"

'Call Waiting' and Other Conundrums of Telephone Etiquette

The telephone was an ornery object even when it was simple and ugly. Now that its shape has been streamlined, its colors lightened and brightened, and its works programmed to be as complicated as a jet aircraft, its arrogance knows no bounds. It is rude, intrusive and demanding. It beeps in the middle of a conversation and expects understanding and forgiveness. 

Now that telephones are not only everywhere - showers, airplanes, boats and gardens - but have become increasingly complicated, telephone manners are, quite naturally, becoming equally complicated. Assume that one makes a call and hears splashing water at the other end. Should one pretend that it's perfectly normal to talk to a naked person in a shower, or make a comment about it? Is it time for jokes, embarrassment or savoir-faire? 

''It's unchic to make a big deal out of it; you have to adopt an 'oh yes, so what' attitude,'' one caller said. ''There's no question that you subsconsciously visualize what that person looks like in the buff, but you've got to present yourself as calm, unruffled and unsurprised.'' 

The innovation most resented by most people is ''call waiting,'' a service or disservice formerly available only on telephones with several lines, and now possible on single-line instruments. This development punctuates a call with a beep, or beeps, if someone else is tying to get through while a conversation is going on. When this happens, the person already on the line is almost always asked to hold while the second call is answered.               

"Amazing!  This thing actually works! Oh wait... There's another call coming in.  Hang on. Let me see who that is..." Two of the country's leading etiquette experts were appalled at the concept of call waiting in the 1980s.  Most still are.

''It's last come, first served, an incredibly rude idea,'' said Judith Martin, who is also known as ''Miss Manners.'' ''It's an invention of the devil,'' said the late-Letitia Baldrige, the author of the revised ''Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette'' and ''Letitia Baldrige's Complete Guide to Executive Manners.'' 

''Let them call again,'' she said. ''For years people have re-dialed when the line was busy. They waited their turn. When I'm put on hold, I always hope that as my revenge, their other call will be someone wanting to sell them something.'' 

Mrs. Martin compared call-waiting to ''standing at a cocktail party and not paying attention to the person you're with, waiting for a more important person.'' 

A number of people not in the etiquette business also dislike call-waiting. ''I had it but I gave it up because I think it's terribly rude,'' said a singer-pianist. ''You either had to take that second call or keep on being interrupted by those beeps.'' One woman said she was of two minds about call-waiting, although she herself refused to have it. But, she said, most of the young people she works with, who are on the junior benefit committees for the Youth Counseling League, have the service. 

''I don't know which is more offensive, having your call broken into by another, or to keep calling and get a busy signal,'' she said. ''The only way to handle call-waiting with any kind of manners,'' she added, ''is to excuse yourself for a moment, answer the second call, take the number and return immediately to the original call.''

What's the etiquette of taking a telephone call in a car? 

The publisher of one magazine, said her own car had a speaker-phone but that she never used it if there were other people traveling with her. ''It's just plain manners,'' she said. However, she said, she always hires cars with telephones, and she frequently makes calls from airplanes, she said. She not only didn't agree with people who considered it gauche to announce that they were calling from a car or a plane, but she often found it useful. 

''I might tell them, 'It's costing me 50 cents a second from the car, and let's get down to business,' '' she said. ''And if I call from a plane, I always tell them where I am. People love it, they get a real high, and they always take the call.'' 

As for Mrs. Martin, her feelings about the telephone and its innovations go beyond call-waiting. Of one thing she's certain: She's not going to live at its beck and call. She has no ''ringing'' telephone in her home, she said. She said she manages very well with a 24-hour ''live'' answering service, and she returns calls at her convenience. ''The telephone demands to be attended to when it feels like it, regardless of what anyone is doing - and my husband and I have simply eliminated that,'' she said. ''We do not need to be reached day and night.'' 

''The fact is if more business was conducted by mail, the world would go around a lot faster,'' she said. ''The illusion that the telephone speeds up communication is ridiculous. You can spend days with messages back and forth.'' 

Mrs. Martin was considering updating the calling card routine once practiced by the tonier types of every city. Her idea was to institute ''telephone hours'' at home, where one could be ''in'' for calls between certain hours and ''not receive'' the rest of the time. 

She did, however, consider the answering machine a convenience, although it had one drawback. ''People get very angry because there is a deep-down belief that you should be available 24 hours a day,'' she said. ''The trouble with answering machines is that you're almost forced to return calls,'' said another woman. ''The excuse that your machine is, or was, on the blink can only be used once or twice.'' 

She also pointed out the trap of using the machine to screen calls - picking up only if it's someone you want to talk to. 

''Once they start doing that, their friends never believe that they're really out,'' she said. ''They are convinced that the person is really there but not picking up. The whole thing gets unbelievably convoluted.''

This originally was published in the NY Times, by Enid Nemy


Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Toilet Etiquette –UK to Saudi Arabia

Please do not stand on the toilet: Lloyds Bank put up instructions on British loo etiquette for foreign workers

Stop standing on the toilet! Lloyds Bank issued instructions to its foreign staff on how to use British loos in March of 2014.

• Diagram has gone up in bank's Old Broad Street branch in central London

• It shows workers from overseas how to sit on the loo and how to flush it

• Tells them to put used toilet roll down the loo but plastic cups in the bin

• Other instructions include flushing it with your hand, rather than your foot

• Increasing numbers of businesses are doing the same to help foreign staff

Lloyds Bank has put up instructions telling foreign staff how to use the loo, with details such as 'sit on the toilet - do not stand on it', and 'please flush it with your hand and not your foot'.

With the help of diagrams, workers are shown how to open the door using their hand, and are requested not to leave toilet roll on the door handle.

The instructions, put up in Lloyds Bank's Old Broad Street office in central London, give full instructions of British etiquette in the lavatory, including 'The sinks are for washing your hands only - no using hand towels or toilet paper as a plug'.

Other tips including toilet-users to throw used loo roll down the loo, rather than put it in a bin, but telling them to do the opposite with plastic cups.

The instructions are there for workers from around the world with different toilet habits.  For example in south America, it is common to put used toilet roll into a bin beside the loo because few houses have sophisticated drains that can cope with loo roll.

A breach of etiquette, but a recent "Talk Talk Mobile" study also found nearly half of all British people surveyed admitted to having text, emailed or called someone on the toilet.

And in continental Europe, squatting over a 'hole-in-the-ground' toilet has been the norm until very recently.

The poster has gone up in several Lloyds Bank offices, and a spokesman said today: 'We take the health and safety of our colleagues very seriously.'

The high street bank is just the latest business to acknowledge the different toilet habits of workers from overseas - factories across the country are reportedly putting up posters detailing British loo etiquette as more workers arrive from overseas.

A DHL warehouse in Swindon had installed a European-style 'hole in the ground' loo because foreign workers kept breaking the English-style loo seat by standing on it.

When managers at the depot, a distribution centre for B&Q, realised that their employees from Eastern Europe preferred squatting while going to the loo, they ordered a toilet to match their requirements.

A source said the new loo was installed after instructions telling staff how to use an English loo went ignored, saying: 'Staff were fed up with the toilet seats breaking and workers leaving a mess.'

British visitors to Europe often complain about the lack of sit-down toilets, particularly in motorway service stations and bus and railway stations.

But British-style loos are comparatively rare in some countries including India and Japan, where they were only introduced recently.

However, squat loos may be set to gain in popularity in Britain, thanks to doctors who claim that the squatting posture brings health benefits.

Some medics believe that squatting while going to the toilet is a more 'natural' position, and could protect against disease.

Source –Harriet Arkell, The Daily Mail

The Four Seasons hotel bathroom in Riyadh

Etiquette of "Going to the Bathroom"

You may say that this is a strange topic to be writing about. However, we all visit the bathroom and as we know, it is a place of filth where we relieve ourselves of the filth in our bodies. Have we ever stopped to think what the Islamic etiquette is to visit the bathroom or has it become an automated everyday action?

We must be aware that this beautiful religion has even instructed us on how to clean after relieving ourselves.

Just observe the greatness of Islam that nothing, major or minor, has been left out. At the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), when one of the polytheists said to Salman Al-Farsi mockingly, “Your Prophet has taught you everything, even how to defecate!” Salman replied with pride, “Yes, indeed! He forbade us to face the Qiblah when urinating or defecating.” (Al-Tirmidhi, no. 16)

Therefore, we should know that this is not a matter of shame, but something we should be proud of.

Below are some points are listed that we should remember when visiting the bathroom:

Always enter with the left leg and recite the du’a: “Allahumma innee a’oodhu bika minal-Khubthi wal-Khabaa’ith” (O Allah! I seek refuge in you from male and female noxious beings (devils or evil Jinn).”

Don’t face the Qiblah or show your back towards it. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: “When any one of you sits down to answer the call of nature, he should not face the Qiblah or turn his back towards it.” (Sahih Muslim, no. 389)

Allah’s name should not be mentioned in the toilet, nor should anything that has the name of Allah on it be carried inside.

The person should do his/her best not to clean the private parts with the right hand. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “When any one of you answers the call of nature, he should not hold his private part in his right hand or clean it with his right hand; and (when drinking), he should not breathe into the vessel.” (Al-Bukhari, no. 150)

The Sunnah is to answer the call of nature sitting, making oneself close to the ground, because this is more concealing and it will be less likely that filth will fall on one’s body or clothes. Though it is permissible to urinate while standing if a person can be sure of avoiding filth, it is not something recommended.

One should not talk while relieving as this has been classified as Makrooh (disliked) by many of scholars.

Many people today go into the toilet and start reading a newspaper or a book. It is common to find that people have even resorted to entering the toilet to get away from things and contemplate. This is not the place to do these things. May Allah protect us from that.

When leaving you should go out with your right leg and say, “Ghufraanak” [I ask You (Allah) for forgiveness].

Again, we should be thankful to Allah that He has made the religion simple for us. Allah has taught us how to protect ourselves from evil. Be sure that toilets are from among the evil and dirty places.

Abu Dawood and Ibn Majah hav narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “These toilets are visited (by jinn), so when any one of you goes to the toilet, let him say, ‘O Allah, I seek refuge with You from evil and from the male and female devils.’” (Ibn Majah, authenticated by Al-Albani) The great scholar Sheikh Bin Uthaymeen said in Al-Sharh Al-Mumti, vol. 1, p. 83:

The benefit of saying Bismillah is that it conceals a person. The benefit of seeking refuge with Allah is that one is turning to Allah from evil and from the male and female devils, for this place is filthy and a filthy place is the abode of those who are evil. Therefore, it is the abode of the devils. Thus it is appropriate if one wants to enter the toilet to say (the du’a) so that he will not be harmed.– Source – Humza Mullick, The Saudi Gazette 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia