Respondez S'il Vous Wait...

Nathan was perplexed.

He'd organised his birthday party a month in advance, eagerly sending out individual invitations to more than a dozen friends from across the years via his Facebook page.

A week before the event, plenty had commented but more than a few had responded with a "Maybe", despite the presence of a prominent 'RSVP' within the p-a-g-e.

He then used the social network's 'reminder' function, to, well, remind his nearest and dearest of the forthcoming event.

A day before, with his mobile phone glowing, he decided to text a few of those he had considered in his closest circle. The silence that followed was deafening.

"I hadn't issued out a general group invite," writes Nathan.
"I'd only wanted to celebrate my birthday at the pub surrounded by my mates - mates, I might add, whose parties I'd often dragged myself out of the house on cold and rainy nights to attend."

The RSVP was once as much a must-have for a special outing or occasion as a new outfit and a social status.

It spoke volumes of the good breeding of the Invited and also served as a way for the Inviter to keep a tally on numbers and gauge just how many devils-on-horseback to whip up.

Today's Facebook invites have an added benefit of letting the Invited know just who will be in attendance.

No longer are Inviters bothered with those tedious phone calls in the busy lead-up to the event to find out "who's coming" or if Rachel will be there because, of course, she's had a falling out with Jenny ever since that day when Tom was seen at the races with her.

Facebook has indeed changed the world of the party invite.

But there is one big pitfall to this easier, more open world of who's in and who's out - and I call it the Respondez S'il Vous Wait.

The Invited can and often do now choose to hold off on their RSVP to an event - for a variety of reasons - thanks to Facebook's Maybe button.

The RSVW may simply be due to rotating work rosters and an inability to confirm their availability on the night.

Or, more sinisterly, it's an opportunity to R-S-V-Wait-and-See who else is attending, or even if there is a better offer coming in the cyber-pipeline.

Whatever the case, it's simply not good form to adopt this approach.

If you're available, make a decision.

There's far too many Maybes in the world. Be a Yes or a No and pick a side.

As for Nathan's Maybes out there, I think it's safe to say you can expect a RSVW at your next event.

In your own private universe…

I miss manners in the world...

Good manners. Commonsense. Etiquette. 

No matter what you call it, the concept of a social rulebook seems to be fading fast in today’s society.

Once upon a time, we were taught from an early age how to chew with a closed mouths; how to discreetly use a handkerchief or tissue; how to write a letter, or start a conversation.

The times are a-changing - but that doesn’t mean we must lose all connection to centuries of lessons in how to live, together, on the planet.

Murray of Tempe agrees. He writes of sitting on the bus the other day, minding his own business, when his eye was caught by some rapid movement from the woman in the seat opposite - she was filing her fingernails!! Ferociously.

Personal grooming - of any form - should be just that. Personal. Conducted in private. One wouldn't wax or pluck one's eyebrows on a bus and neither should one be grinding their nails away into dust in such a shared space.

I have even watched in stunned silence as friends have become visibly obsessed with picking at whatever is underneath their nails whilst in my company.

Similarly, flossing the teeth, using a toothpick, cleaning cuticles, poking in and around the ear canal and, an ashamedly increasing trend - picking one's nose in public - are all human habits that are best undertaken in the privacy of your home.

And while on this note:

Earlier this week, I witnessed a delivery man very loudly and shamelessly gather phlegm in his mouth outside a cafe and then melodramatically direct it into the nearest bin before a small but horrified audience.

The city's garbage bins, and streets for that matter, are not personal spittoons.

At the end of the day, it's merely another form of littering in an increasingly polluted world.  Use a tissue or find some other, less publicly obnoxious way of marking your turf.

A Spoonful of Sugar…

"For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun - find the fun and snap! The job's a game…" (Mary Poppins, 1964)

A certain world-famous nanny, who was practically perfect in every single way, once trilled something about a spoonful of sugar doing the most magical things.
Household chores simply did themselves. Birds sang on windowsills.
In other words, a positive attitude could make all the difference to the dullest of tasks or days (but somehow, I don't think this song would've been as snappy.)

For some, dining out for breakfast in a cafe on weekends in Sydney is a real treat, and especially cherished when shared with interstate visitors. 

Last weekend, I eagerly led the way with my party of three to a cafe in Marrickville for this very purpose. It didn't look particularly busy - the perfect place to catch up.

And so in the doorway we hovered, waiting for one of three waitresses - less than three metres away, giggling and apparently all assigned to put away cutlery - to look up.

Bingo. Houston, we had eye contact - with one then the others. Somewhere, the ticking of a clock echoed through time. Crickets may have also been chirping.

I decided to choose our own table.

Minutes melted away. Eventually, one of the waitresses managed to find her way to our table and then very literally slapped down four cumbersomely oversized menus with four equally unmanageable wine lists onto the edge of the table.

With a scowl and a sigh, she spat,"I'll have to come back because there's too many of youse…"
Noticing the stunned silence, she added the disclaimer: "..in the nicest way."

And off she buzzed, leaving us to ponder on the surely multitudinous ways that the statement could be taken at its "nicest."

After 10 minutes of waiting for our nicest possible waitress to return, I tried in vain to hail her down in order to return the bulky breakfast wine lists and hopefully make an order before evening.

A middle-aged woman standing behind the register glanced over with neither a smile, nor evidently, interest, and just as swiftly, looked away.

At this moment, we decided to leave. We took our business only metres down the road but, as it turned out, to another galaxy in terms of smart business practice.

We were greeted at the door, and again behind the counter, by friendly, smiling faces. Menus were handed out individually, with witty smalltalk about the day-so-far on the side, followed by enthusiastic recommendations of blackboard specials.

It was the spoonful of sugar that had been missing. We were even thanked for our business when it was time to pay the bill.

You may not love your job. You may not even like it. But no matter what it is, there's the whole world at your feet and who gets to see it but the birds, the stars and the chimney sweeps.