This is too funny: blogger FemaleScienceProfessor reports of a phishing scam at her university, in which “an unknown and nefarious person who sent an email to faculty in my department ‘from’ one of our departmental colleagues who had an emergency whilst traveling and needed a quick infusion of cash.”

Turns out, though: said colleague actually is disorganized to get him- or herself into such a situation. The giveaway was that the e-mail was too politely worded and well written to have come from said colleague.

Last week’s episode of “The Office” was, even more than usual, a virtual seminar in How Not to Do Things, from How Not to Play Office Politics to How Not to RSVP to a Wedding (“I’ll just text you for directions the day of. And put me down for whatever’s fanciest. Unless there’s ribs.”)

However, there is one thing that Pam Beesley-soon-to-be-Halpert got right, and that she’s gotten right before: how to call someone out on bad behavior.

In this episode, Michael warns Pam that if she lies to him, her baby will be born a liar, because he will imbibe dishonesty through her breast milk. To which Pam replies, “Please don’t talk about my breast milk.”

That’s how you do it. You don’t interpret the behavior, you describe it, as neutrally and objectively as possible, in a calm voice. If Pam had said, “Please respect my privacy,” or “Please don’t say things that are work-inappropriate,” that would be an invitation — as she knows all too well — for a long digression on Michael Scott’s part as to why talking about his employee’s breast milk is not an invasion of privacy or inappropriate at work. Because anyone who will talk about his employee’s breast milk, pretty well by definition, does not understand the concepts of privacy and appropriateness. But he could hardly argue that he was, as a matter of empirical fact, talking about her breast milk.

She has done this before with Michael, most notably when she said, “Please don’t throw garbage at me.” And here’s the thing: it works. It works about as well as anything will work with the Michael Scotts in our lives. He never did throw garbage at her again after that, nor, at least for the rest of the episode, did he talk about her breast milk.

Of course, he continues to violate all norms of social conduct in every other way, because he is Michael Scott, and has the emotional development and social skills of a not particularly cool kindergartner.* This is what’s frustrating about people like that — and we all have them, in some version or another, in our lives — they never generalize to an overarching principle. Tell them not to throw garbage at you, and they’ll just put butter on your desk.

But hey, at least they’re not throwing garbage at you anymore. Sometimes that’s as good as it gets.

*I know at least one kindergartner whose empathy, humor, and sense of occasion far outstrips that of Michael Scott, so if you are the parent of a similar one, please don’t take what I said personally. That’s why I added that “not particularly cool” clause.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good post up about Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” comment during the president’s speech last night, putting it in the context of other … altercations.

A few days ago, Mr. Improbable posted the following dialogue to his Facebook page (I’m reformatting it for easier reading):

Phone call received here 1 minutes ago:
Me: Hello, Improbable Research.
Caller: Hi Marc, this is ___ from ___. How ya doing today?
Me: Fine
Caller: Blah blah blah
Me: Do you have any idea who we are or what we do?
Caller: No.
Me: Well, it’s been… nice talking with you. Please put us on your “Don’t Call” list, if you have enough information to do even that.
Me: [hangs up the phone]

A few minutes later, he added this comment:

And now I’ve gotten an email from the man who telephoned. The email says:

Hello Marc,

Thank you so much for time on the phone! I found it very useful to know more about your company, and in the future will do research on the people and companies that I call so I don’t have to get responses like yours.

Rest assured you will not receive another email or phone call from us.

Warm regards,
_____________

I have to say, I think that was rather well-handled all around.

Bothered by chatty folks sitting next to you on the plane? PeaceBang, who also writes the blog Beauty Tips for Ministers, has a solution.

PeaceBang has a great post up on “TANG”:

She told me that tang is your life force, your mojo, your vibe, your get-it-together. You know what I mean. And you know when your TANG is together.

I just rented the brilliant, heartrending “Frozen River” last night (Melissa Leo was robbed of the Oscar, robbed) and it’s hard to think of “TANG” as a symbol of win after that, but I’m tryin’, PB.

This post hit me for two reasons: one, because when you’re trying to figure out what to wear on national TV, yes, your TANG better go to eleven. I have a lovely red dress that would have been perfect, actually, but that dress feels like old me, somehow. It doesn’t feel like 2009 me. It’s funny how the mojo of some garments increases over time–I feel even cooler and more myself now in my black leather bomber jacket than I did when I got it 15+ years ago–and that of other garments dissolves. The red dress is perfectly fine, and I still wear it to work and plays and brunches and whatnot. But it ain’t TANGy enough for Hoda and Kathie Lee.

The second is that the meat of the post is about questions and comments that take away your TANG. Certainly PeaceBang’s two examples are distinctly rude, but as we’ve been discussing, not every question that stomps your TANG is necessarily inappropriate. And some inappropriate questions and comments can, if you’ve got a quirky TANG, even enhance it. Like the beverage itself, my TANG is a product of the Space Age, and is thus quite properly enhanced by being told I look like Spock.

We’ve been talking a while now about awkward questions and the difficulties they’ve posed. How about some success stories?

What are difficult questions you’ve found a good answer to?

Here’s one I’ve finally figured out an answer to: “Do you have children?”

Why is this awkward? As I’ve mentioned, I’m childless by choice, and I wasn’t even offended when I was asked to explain how I could possibly feel that way. So it’s not that I think the question is invasive, or rude, or hurtful in any way.

It’s just awkward because the answer is “No.”

And I hate answering questions “No” with no followup. I’ve had too much theater training to do that. There’s a rule in improv called “yes-and”: the idea being that you never stonewall your partner’s attempt to connect. You agree, and then take things in a new direction. Like so:

When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage to improvise a scene with no script, you have no idea what’s going to happen, maybe with someone you’ve never met before. To build a scene, you have to accept. To build anything onstage, you have to accept what the other improviser initiates on stage. They say you’re doctors—you’re doctors. And then, you add to that: We’re doctors and we’re trapped in an ice cave. That’s the “-and.” And then hopefully they “yes-and” you back. You have to keep your eyes open when you do this. You have to be aware of what the other performer is offering you, so that you can agree and add to it. And through these agreements, you can improvise a scene or a one-act play.

Obviously, in real life, you don’t have to answer “Yes-and” to every question literally. (“Do you have a moment for the environment?” “Yes, and I’m not going to waste it talking to you!”) But you do, if you want to be a successful conversationalist, have to give someone something back when they hand you a question, some other peg to hang the conversation on.

“I like your scarf.” “Thanks, I got it in New York. Do you get down to the city much?”

“What do you do?” “I’m a nuclear physicist. And I coach my kids’ soccer on the weekend. Do you ever play?”

“Do you have children?” “Yes, two. And I’m just trying to get our oldest into a good day school. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork!”

See, all those answers give the other person somewhere to go, conversationally, in a way that a flat, factual answer just won’t. Especially if the answer is “no.”

And I’ve never found anything to stick on the end of that “no” when the question is about kids. Sometimes you can stick the actual reason on the end of the “no”: you say, “Are you taking any trips this summer?” and they say, “No, we’re trying to save money,” and then you talk money-saving tips. But I’m not going to offer, unsolicited, my reasons for not having kids, especially to someone I’ve just met who does have them, because yeesh.*

The ConductMom sometimes responds, when people ask her if she has grandchildren, that Mr. Improbable and I are very involved in our careers and travel a lot. This is true, but that isn’t why we don’t have children. If we’d wanted them, we’d figure out ways to juggle our other commitments, just as other parents do. Besides, I’m uncomfortable with painting a picture of us as so ambitious and driven that we’ve sacrificed parenthood on the altar of Mammon. (Especially given the modest Mammon we’re bringing in; if it were a sacrifice, we wuz robbed.) We didn’t not have kids in order to do some other thing, and I don’t want to present it that way. (Although the ConductMom can deal with that question however she likes; I’m not criticizing her, only explaining why her solution doesn’t work for me.)

When we got Milo, I immediately considered and rejected the “No, but we have a dog!” This implies that dogs are child substitutes, which is a notion that as a responsible dog lover I think is incredibly dangerous. Milo is not a child substitute because 1) he is not a child, and 2) he is not a substitute. A substitute is something that takes the place of some other, desired, thing. I don’t want kids, so Milo is no substitute for them. It’s also insulting to parents to compare children and pets. (In some ways, anyway. I talk about what you can and can’t say in that regard in the pets chapter of Mind over Manners.)

But my little guy did come to my rhetorical rescue after all, when I realized I didn’t have to compare Milo to a child–I could compare dog-owner me with potential-mommy me instead. So now, my usual response is, “No, and it’s a good thing! As bad as I spoil my dog and bore my friends with stories about him, I would be insufferable if I actually had my own children!”

This is self-deprecating but not self-insulting, not anti-child or -parenthood, honest, and provides a lot of areas for the conversation to go afterward (sharing dog/kid stories, sharing stories about friends or relatives who won’t shut up about their kid or dog, etc.).

So thanks, Milo. You really are the gift that keeps on giving.

What are awkward conversations that you’ve found good answers to?

*Although I’ve never gotten grief about my choice from an actual mother of children still living at home. Moms, more than anyone, get that bearing and raising kids is incredibly difficult, and far too great a responsibility to be undertaken out of a vague sense that having kids is just what people do. The most common response I’ve gotten from mothers if I mention I don’t want kids isn’t, “Oh, but you’re missing out on nature’s greatest miracle!”, it’s “Well, good for you! Being a parent is so hard no one should do it unless they absolutely want to 110%.”

Surely you’ve encountered “chuggers”–the British term for those young people employed to accost you on the street and ask for donations or signatures for a worthy cause. (Charity + muggers = “chuggers.” I do love the Brits.)

Slate’s Sandy Stonesifer sorts out the ethical and etiquette dilemmas these folks pose. Good read. (Amusingly, the person who wrote her about this is from Boston. I wonder which group of activists she encounters most often? I run into them in Harvard Square, of course, and at Porter outside my gym. Et vous, if you’re local?)

Here is a fascinating letter I got shortly before Mind over Manners was published, from an advance reader who called himself a “case study” for the book:

I have spent the last 30 years as a practicing/lapsed/practicing/lapsed Hare Krishna, and while I haven’t told more than 6-7 people that, in the 13 years I have lived in [State], I have found that many people take great offense at the restrictions and prohibitions that I am obligated to disclose in the workplace, volunteering, etc.

None of them have any idea of why I attempt to maintain the restrictions, but that doesn’t stop them from wildly speculating:

“He rides a bicycle instead of driving a car because he lost his license” (not because it is healthy)
“It must because he is an alcoholic, did you know he refuses to go to company get-togethers if alcohol is served”
“I think my neighbor is a racist who doesn’t like black people; why else won’t he come over for barbeque and beer and sports talk?”
“And he doesn’t mind working on Christian holidays….how are we ever going to discourage our company from working on holidays if HE does?” And on and on and on………

I am beginning to think that wearing my chosen religion on my sleeve, on the bookshelf in my cubicle, on the teeshirt under my work clothes may have been the correct choice, because as it stands, I have left a wake of people that are completely convinced I don’t like them for the color of their skin, because they are the boss, because of…….. Anything but the simple and correct understanding which is that everyone is allowed to decide what they eat, what they drink, who they associate with, and until a behavior rises to the level of insult, hostility, violence, etc., the practitioner owes no one an apology or an explanation.

I recently answered a Craigslist ad, when I arrived at the person’s house; he was doing yard work in a leather kilt. I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. That behavior was easy for me, because of all my memories of being rudely interrogated for behaviors that aren’t illegal, didn’t put anyone at risk, and weren’t anyone’s business.

My response to come shortly. Keeping comments closed for now but I’ll open them up after I’ve posted my thoughts.

So this post on etiquette as a blunt instrument, or the difference between hurtful comments and questions and rude ones, got me wondering: what are ordinary, innocent statements/jokes/questions that drive you nuts? That are personally hurtful, or at least annoying, to you, but that can’t really be classified as “rude”?

… I would have just called you and said ‘I’m going to be on “Oprah.”‘ I wouldn’t have let you come to me.”

This is every conversation I have had in the past six months:

Thank you, Kate Harding.