Understand Subtleties Of Doing Favors

“Asking for and doing favors sometimes signals cooperation. More often, it is an unwritten social contract setting up a power relationship.”

Doing favors: Understanding the subtleties

NEW YORK- It can all start with the fatal question, “Could you do this one favor for me?”

With that, and whatever response it engenders, begins the interpersonal maneuvering, the power plays, the jockeying over who owes what to whom.

“The word ‘favor’ implies there’s no cost, but that’s not so,” said Frederick H. Kanfer, a psychology professor.

According to Kanfer, who is also director of clinical training in psychology at the University of Illinois at Champaign, we may ask someone a favor to make that person feel good saying – in effect – “I need you.” We may be enlisting help in avoiding a decision. Or we may be trying to flatter the other person. At the same time, he said, asking a favor “reduces our control over ourselves, because we may feel indebted.”

Whether we do a favor or not can be fraught with similar subtleties: Do we want someone in our debt? What if he or she doesn't reciprocate? Performing the favor can be inconvenient. And it could yield the wrong results - what some have dubbed the well intentioned road to perdition. Take, for example, the friend who was asked to buy a T-bone steak, but got a sirloin instead because the butcher had no T-bones. Were thanks offered for an ingenious rescue? No. The purchase was coldly received.

So why do favors?

“People generally like to be helpful,” said Robert D. Caplan, a research psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. “We also like to appear knowledgeable and competent. And by doing favors, we exercise control over others.”

“Moreover, the cost of not doing a favor is high,” said Michael J. White, a social psychologist at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “It disrupts our smooth interaction. Here we have asked someone we thought would say ‘yes,’ and they disconfirm our theory about our relationship by saying ‘no.’”

Favor-giving has its limits, however.

“Several psychologists have theorized that people have a great sensitivity to what is fair and equitable,” White said, “which may be why a lot of us become annoyed when other people do us too many favors. Perhaps we sense they are trying to control us.”

“Years ago when I was pregnant, we had a neighbor who, unasked, picked up our children at school and prepared meals for us,” said Margaret J. Rumford, a librarian at the Fairfield (Conn.) Country Day School.

“Initially, I felt grateful. Then I got annoyed, because she wouldn't let me do anything for her.” Only later could she rationalize the incident, thinking. “This woman did things for me but clearly didn't need me doing for her, which left me free to do for someone else.”

Unrecognized favors car be equally frustrating. “Let's say you do me lots of favors,” White said, “and, though you don't ask me, I paint the garage for you. But if you don't recognize my effort as a favor, the balance still is not restored.”

Favors with explicit “givebacks” are unpopular, too. “There are certain types of people who simply have to point out that since they’re doing you a favor, you owe them,” said Susan Handman, a production coordinator at McCaffery & McCall, an advertising agency in Manhattan. “They're giving you no option about responding. Maybe that's one reason why I don't ask for many favors.”

Does she do favors? “Yes, although I feel free to say no, with an explanation to soften the blow,” she said.

Psychologists suggest that we explain refusals in part because it reassures the other person that the relationship is sound: the only reason for not performing the service is that there was a prior commitment. Perhaps that is why Handman finds saying no, without explanation, comparatively easy when the person asking is her husband.

“I can say, ‘No, I don't want to go out and get you some milk,’ and he will understand that I still love him,” she said. “Of course, he may not accept it, in which case he’ll whine about how hungry he is.”

What does she do? “I hit him with a pillow or whine even louder.” – By Margot Slade for the New York Times, 1986

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

Inaugural Etiquette of Senate

The 25th President of the United States, William McKinley and his wife, Ida Saxton McKinley

Senate Etiquette: It Came Near to Making Roosevelt Miss President McKinley’s Inauguration

A Vice President seated in solitary grandeur in the senate chamber, while the ceremony of a Presidential inauguration to which he has been invited as an honored guest is going on outside surely presents a spectacle with an element of humor in it. Few persons know how near Theodore Roosevelt came to playing such a part on the 4th of March, 1901. 

The senate sticklers so for minor details of etiquette that the most strenuous reformer would hardly venture to transgress its rules, and they require that a formal motion to adjourn shall be put before a day’s session can come to an end. After his inauguration as Vice President in the senate chamber Mr. Roosevelt took the gavel and, when the routine business was finished, directed the Sergeant at Arms, as usual, to proceed with the ceremony of inaugurating Mr. McKinley as President.

It was then in order for some senator to move an adjournment, but in the confusion nobody seemed to have his wits about him, and the whole assemblage, including the senators, quitted the chamber for the east portico, where the oath was to be administered and the address delivered. In a few minutes the Vice President found himself alone, with a fair prospect of remaining so until the day's performances were over, but it chanced that Senator Heitfeld missed his hat while passing through the corridor and came back to look for it. 

Face to face with the Vice President, it occurred to the senator that something must be wrong, so with the utmost gravity he moved “that the senate do now adjourn.” Mr. Roosevelt, with equal solemnity, put the motion, declared it carried and proceeded in Mr. Heitfeld’s company to the place on the Presidential stand which had been reserved for him.- Francis E. Lempp in Century, 1903

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

White House Civilities for Incomings

During her residence in the White House, Mrs. Grover Cleveland stood up in all the beauty of her young womanhood and bravely shook hands with the mighty public until she had to take her rings and gloves off, until her fingers were swollen, her arm was lame and her hand was like a puff ball. After every reception her maid had a solution ready to bathe her dislocated members, and it was often necessary to rip her sleeve up in order to get it off. 

 

It is an unwritten law of etiquette that the family of the out-going President should receive the family of the incoming President at the White House on inauguration day and immediately after the ceremonies at the Capitol. President and Mrs. Cleveland made an exception and asked President-elect and Mrs. Harrison to dine with them at the White House on the evening preceding the day of the inauguration. They did not, however, remain in the White House on inauguration day, and when President and Mrs. Harrison went there the employees and servants alone received them. President Harrison will observe the usual etiquette and will omit no courtesy. After the ceremonies at the Capitol Mr. Harrison will return to the White House, where Mrs. McKee will remain, and, as the outgoing hostess, will assist him in receiving President and Mrs. Cleveland. — Philadelphia Times, March, 1893

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

Letitia Baldrige on Executive Manners

On TV, you'll see a woman 65 years old married for the third time tossing her bouquet. It's so ridiculous... SO many travesties of taste go on the air.

On Zed Diamond and Jenny Markham’s wedding day, fate threw a curve separating them for three years. She had amnesia; he thought she was dead.

Then one day they rediscovered each other and decided to reaffirm their wedding vows. What's the proper protocol for such an event?

If you are a couple from the daytime soap opera “Capitol,” you call upon Letitia Baldrige for the answers.

Baldrige, former Social Secretary to U.S. ambassadors, and Jackie Kennedy's White House Chief of Staff, is without contention the foremost expert on personal and business etiquette in the United States.

For “Capitol’s” renewal-of-vows ceremony, Baldrige said the bride should walk in from the side, not up the aisle. She should wear a pastel shade, not white. The cake, too, should be decorated with color. No flower children should toss rose petals nor friends throw rice.

Those rites are reserved for the first wedding.

When it comes to the marriage ceremony, Baldrige is a traditionalist.

“You can only get married for the first time once,” she insisted in a recent interview.

Baldrige, who rewrote “Amy Vanderbilt's Book of Etiquette” in 1978 and has gained even more renown for her “Complete Guide To Executive Manners,” published in 1985, was asked to advise “Capitol” on the correct wedding form for a couple who previously married.

That meant Jenny could not toss her bouquet, could not wear a train or a long veil (only a short one) and she needed to generally “play it cool on the white stuff.” Baldrige was delighted that “Capitol” asked for her assistance.

“On TV, you'll see a woman 65 years old married for the third time tossing her bouquet. It's so ridiculous,” she said.

“Television has such tremendous influence, but so many travesties of taste go on the air. You'll see tables improperly set, with the fork and knife and spoon juxtaposed.

“Or on one nighttime soap opera, they showed a poolside luncheon with everyone dressed in tennis shorts and bathing suits, and the butler was serving lunch. That’s only with white gloves for the most formal dinner with everyone in evening clothes.”

As Baldrige knows well, traditions and correct manners are enjoying a hearty resurgence in the ‘80s.

“It's part of the sociological shift,” says Baldrige. “From 1965 to 1978, traditions were out. People got married in the fields, with Hindu zithers playing and cows in the background instead of organ around in music. People walked around patches of poison ivy instead of the church. It was all a caricature of weddings when the youth rebelled in the '60s.

“Then, of course, those same kids put on three-piece suits and wanted to work in corporations, and suddenly attitudes changed. Now, people want to be in the mainstream. They want to do the formal things properly again.”

The growing deference to tradition is not limited to social occasions, Baldrige discovered after she rewrote the Vanderbilt book.

“There was one small chapter in there on business etiquette. And it was reprinted in airline magazines and company publications all over the world,” she said.

“Then, I started getting calls from businesses and corporations around the country asking for help on how they worded their invitations, and about protocol at meetings. I realized there was a real market there.”

So in 1980 Baldrige added an executive branch to the New York public relations and marketing firm she has run since 1964.

“But I knew I needed a textbook on business etiquette. So I wrote the ‘Complete Guide To Executive Manners.’” Actually, the book is, as Baldrige called it, “the first, big, sort of encyclopedia on behavior in the office.”

Yes, the book covers the proper form of address for officials in government, military and business. Yes, it discusses how far in advance business invitations should be mailed.

But it also delineates the qualities of good managers: Never expect others to follow rules you do not. Never repeat a rumor that would hurt someone's reputation. Keep promises, both large and small.

Baldrige learned the rules of good business behavior by her proximity to people of power and class.

“Since I was 20 years old. I had role models like Clare Boothe Luce. I had all those years in the White House, all these years in business. I worked with David Bruce, who was the greatest senior diplomat we had in this century, in the American Embassy in Paris.”

Baldrige said the basis of executive good manners is twofold: “It’s 75 percent common sense and 25 percent consideration of others. By common sense, I mean making decisions that are efficient and work well. By consideration, I mean decisions that are unselfish and care about someone else's feelings.” – By Divina Infusino for Copley News Service, 1986

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

Etiquette for Cake with Ice Cream

A new twist on ice cream and cake puts ice cream in the cones and places decorated cupcakes atop them. One can eat these by holding them in one hand and starting from the top. Or one can serve them placed on their sides on plates for eating with a fork and a spoon. The ice cream cone is delicate enough to easily break and eat with a fork. The crunchiness adds a fun texture to the cake and ice cream mix!

How to Eat Ice Cream with Cake Properly

DEAR MISS MANNERS - What is the proper way to serve ice cream and cake? I have seen it served in the following ways:
• Together on a crystal dessert plate.
• Ice cream in a goblet on dessert plate, cake on same plate.
• Ice cream in goblet without plate, cake on separate plate.
• Ice cream in dessert bowl, cake on separate plate.
• Together in soup bowl.

If they are served in the same dish, does one eat the cake with a spoon?

Should the ice cream be served first and the cake distributed after all the ice cream has been served?

Or should a slice of cake be added by the host before serving to the guest?

GENTLE READER - This is one of the few matters of table etiquette (milk is another) in which the key factor is the age of the guests.

People of all ages know that ice cream and cake is best eaten by mashing the ice cream down into the cake with the back end of a spoon, preferably while chanting rhythmically but tunelessly to oneself. But only people under the age of 5 can get away with it, and then only when Miss Manners isn't looking.

In order to allow adults to simulate this enjoyment, which is to say to eat ice-cream-and-cake rather than two separate desserts, the items are put on a plate together, with the ice cream on top of the slice of cake or, more dangerously for the tablecloth, off to one side.

The adults are issued both dessert spoons and forks. They may alternate using these, eating the ice cream with the spoon and the cake with the fork, or may keep the fork in the left hand and use it to push ice cream-soaked cake into the spoon, which is held in the right hand. They are not allowed to hum. — By Miss Manners, aka Judith Martin, 1987

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

Etiquette for a Jet Set Pet

When traveling by car with your dog or cat, be sure the pet carrier is seat-belted. Large dogs should be restrained with a harness. Try not to leave your dog or cat alone in the car.

  

Tips on Traveling with Fido

Today more than half the population of the United States  - 63 million households - includes a canine or feline family member. A recent survey showed that 84 percent of dog and cat owners consider their pets as their children. With the deep affection that comes with caring for a pet, animal lovers in growing numbers are loathe to travel without them. In addition to sharing a fun-filled experience, many people no longer see leaving their dog or cat home alone with a house-sitter, dog-walker, or caged in a kennel as their only option.

In response to this burgeoning new market, hotel chains, from Hiltons to Holiday Inns, and from the luxurious Ritz Carlton to the world's finest spas, are now accommodating pets. Choosing a destination, however, is only half the equation. The other concern is humane transportation: how to make sure the journey itself is worry-free and enjoyable for pets, people and fellow travelers.

The ease of traveling with pets these days is due in no small measure to one woman: Gayle Martz. Gayle revolutionized the way people travel with their pets by creating a line of soft-sided pet carriers named for her Llaso Apso, “Sherpa.”

A former flight attendant, Gayle used her travel expertise to design totes and bags that would comply with regulations and fit under the seat in airplanes. She then personally persuaded the airlines to modify their policies, allowing small pets to travel in the passenger cabins rather than to be checked as luggage.

Small pets can now fly in the cabins of Delta, American, Air Canada, America West, Continental, Northwest, TWA, Alaska, West Jet, United and US Air. Secure in their plush, well-ventilated and cozy home-away-from-home, pets enjoy the reassuring presence of their owner and vice versa.

Whether in the air, on the road, or around town on sightseeing or shopping expeditions, advance planning will ensure that taking your pet along is a delightful experience. Here are some etiquette rules for people traveling with pets:

1. Familiarize your pet with its carrier before leaving home.
2. Maintain a low profile. Do not call attention to the pet or disturb fellow passengers. Also in consideration of your fellow passengers, do not take your pet out of the carrier. Your pet must stay in the bag under the seat.
3. Carry a current health certificate from your veterinarian, dated within seven to ten days of departure.
4. Make sure your pet has a collar with a name tag listing owner’s contact information.
5. Pack a travel kit with your pet’s food and treats as well as favorite toys, any medicines and health documents.
6. When making your reservations, be sure to make one for your pet. Only a small number of pets are allowed in passenger cabins on any given trip. Check reservation and fee policies for individual airlines.
7. Airlines require that pet carriers have absorbent liners - be sure you have a spare.
8. At the security checkpoint, request that the agent use the hand-held metal detector.
9. When traveling outside the United States, contact the appropriate embassy far in advance of your trip for quarantine or health requirements.
10. Do not feed your pet within six hours of departure or provide water within two hours of takeoff, and never use tranquilizers unless advised by your veterinarian.

When traveling by car with your dog or cat, be sure the pet carrier is seat-belted. Large dogs should be restrained with a harness. Try not to leave your dog or cat alone in the car. If you must leave for a short period, be sure there is proper ventilation. As with airline travel, the pet should be made comfortable and secure with favorite toys, a blanket or other familiar items.– Chula Vista Star-News, 2001

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

Cigar Smoking Etiquette

The gilded age was a time of beautiful and functional designs. Fifty-six years after this cigar tray was designed, women were doing their best to relegate the smoking of cigars to areas in which they approved, and the worried Cigar Institute of America had undertaken a campaign to placate the ladies. “It patriotically denies that a cigar stinks up clothing or a living room-smoke ring for smoke ring -any more than cigarets. But it gives these etiquette tips to cigar smokers who want to keep the little woman happy.”

Men Smoking More Cigars in Spite of Gals’ Protests

NEW YORK. (AP) - The cigar is sending up smoke signals of prosperity - amid some feminine cries of complaint. Last year 15,500,000 smokers in the United States did away with about 6,500,000,000 cigars. This June almost 430,000,000 cigars were released to the trade, 11 percent more than a year ago. But these figures bring small cheer to many women who persist in the strange delusion that a man who smokes cigars probably also takes opium and eats small children on the half shell.

Why? The cigar is as American as the hotdog. Since Christopher Columbus in 1492 saw his first native contentedly puffing away on a stogie, the cigar has enabled the poor man to feel like a king – and the king to feel as much at ease as the commoner. Yet the cigar smoker today is the victim of a widespread female conspiracy against him. If he lights up his Colorado Claro in an airplane, the stewardess flutters up like an angry butterfly. “Cigaret smoking only!” she says, ferrying away the offending hunk of weed. And the airline never refunds either the cigar or the price of a new one.

You stoke up in a friend’s house and what often happens? His wife throws open the windows, ties back the curtains, turns the fan on you and sits glaring with a baleful eye until you rub out the poor old cigar. My own wife for some years now has been trying to get me to join the C.A.A. - Cigar Addicts Anonymous. It does no good for me to remind her that she thinks Clark Gable packs terrific he-man glamour, and Gable smokes cigars.
“If you are going to try to compare yourself with Clark Gable,”says Frances, “let's start from scratch.”

Nor does it influence wives to point out that the Duke of Windsor, who did give up a kingdom for love, didn't forsake the fragrance of a good Havana. Why bother to cite other famous cigar lovers Winston Churchill or American Presidents like Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge Theodore Roosevelt?

Wives just don't care. Can you calm their ire by reminding them that the American public rewarded Gen. Ulysses S. Grant with 11,000 cigars for capturing Fort Donelson? No, you can't. Remembering what happened to the fine old lost art of tobacco chewing, the worried Cigar Institute of America has undertaken a campaign to placate the ladies.

It patriotically denies that a cigar stinks up clothing or a living room-smoke ring for smoke ring -any more than cigarets. But it gives these etiquette tips to cigar smokers who want to keep the little woman happy:

• Look before you flick - for an ash on the tray is worth two on the vest. 
• Puff a good cigar gently. Laying a smoke screen may easily turn the puff that pleases into the cloud that chokes.
• Please no butts. A collection of unsightly butts parked promiscuously around the house will antagonize the most angelic wife.
• Don't chew the cigar or talk with a Perfecto clamped in the mouth. Cut the cigar with a sharp blade; don't bite off and spit out the end. And light it with a match that has burned off the sulphur. It helps keep the aroma.

There you are, men. Now light up - and watch your wife’s face beam in tender pride and understanding. To keep her happy there is one more thing you can do. Swallow the smoke. – By Hal Boyle, 1948

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

Early Airplane Travel Etiquette

“It's proper to smoke cigarettes in flight without violating the sensibilities, but odorous cigars and pipes are frowned on. It's not correct for women to expect men to yield window seats, nor should travelers remove their shoes unless given a lap robe or slippers by the stewardess.”– Circa 1930: Miss Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess after convincing Boeing Air Transport that female nurses on board each plane would be a relief to nervous airline passengers.

Air Travelers Establish New Etiquette Rules

IS IT good etiquette to tuck your napkin under your chin and eat directly from the casserole? Yes, say social arbiters of airline travel. It's perfectly all right to wear your napkin like an ascot tie and forthright approaches with knife and fork are approved in handling casserole dishes. Entrees and vegetables are served together in the same dish for the sake of convenience in airline cuisine.

In checking on social behavior sanctioned by custom and usage among air travelers, United Air Lines reports that, contrary to Victorian standards, gentlemen may remove their coats and ladies may in all propriety strike up conversations with strangers. And it's quite proper for a man to precede a lady in getting on a plane, if that's his place in line.

It's proper to smoke cigarettes in flight without violating the sensibilities, but odorous cigars and pipes are frowned on. It's not correct for women to expect men to yield window seats, nor should travelers remove their shoes unless given a lap robe or slippers by the stewardess.

And it's a gross breach of airline travel etiquette to pocket the silverware as a souvenir of the trip. – Hanford Daily Sentinel, 1949

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