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- Apologize when you fuck up. Then make it good.
I forgot to call my editor this week. It took me two days to realize it. I was at the gym, ready to hit my Hip Hop Fitness class, when it dawned on me: "I didn't call Tracy." Duh. I sent an apologetic and self-flagellating email. I haven't heard back from her. I'm a bad Etiquette Bitch.
- When online, stop behaving like second graders.
I absolutely love snickering at the overshares and annoying FB posters on those popular sites that publicly humiliate the virtual-world blabbermouths and oversharers. What I don't love about a certain site, however, is that they are now offering to send an anonymous email, on your behalf, to your "friends" telling them that they are annoying.
CONFIDENTIAL TO THE YOUR STATUS IS ANNOYING GUY: ANONYMOUS EMAILS ARE IMMATURE, RUDE, THOUGHTLESS, AND INCONSIDERATE. OH YEAH, AND THEY'RE STRAIGHT OUT OF EIGHTH GRADE! GROW THE FUCK UP. MAKE FUN ALL YOU WANT. STOP THE 'ANONYMOUS' EMAILS, PLEASE.
Think about it for a minute, geniuses: How would you feel if you got an anonymous note telling you something negative about yourself? EB says, if someone thinks so little of you to have a website send you an anonymous, insulting email...is that person really your "friend?" I say, "unfriend."
- Second graders, part 2: curb those immature impulses in the real world, too.
I was appalled -- but really, I guess not that surprised -- that in swapping What-Happened-When-I-Quit-My-Job stories with a colleague, we had the same appalling, no-way-would-this-fly-in-business-etiquette-class experience: We both gave our respective quitting notices to our small-business-owning bosses, who respectively proceeded to read us the riot act, tell us how "awful" we were and then show us the door.
The irony/rub/chuckle in all of this? Both of us had a similar experience years later when the old boss wanted to be friends and reconnect.
Lesson: No need to bad mouth anyone -- in any way -- at work. Trust me, it will bite you in the ass. My ex-boss? I've cost him a lot of business. I went on to work with bigger fish who asked about working with him. My answer was always, "Don't do it."
