DEAR MISS MANNERS: I volunteer for an organization that provides services for homeless people.
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We provide items such as clothes, winter coats, shoes, infant formula, diapers and personal hygiene kits and also help with transportation (such as bus passes) and assistance with getting an apartment. Once someone is housed, we provide “startup kits” with kitchen items, bed linens, towels, etc., plus a grocery delivery service. All this is free.
We also have a “free wall” that has odds and ends we have received as donations. This wall often includes gift cards.
Once, I was putting some cards out when another volunteer approached me, asking if she could take a card for herself because it was so pretty. I was so surprised that I didn’t really know what to say, so I said I guessed she could. She then used it to help herself to free items.
This woman spent 12 days in France with her husband and two sons. They traveled out of the country several other times last year, so I know she’s comfortable financially.
Now, she follows me to the free area each week, saying, “What goodies do you have today?” So far, she’s expressed her disappointment in the offerings, but I fear she will eventually ask again.
Can you suggest something I can say to discourage her from taking things meant to help our homeless community?
GENTLE READER: You cannot decently accuse this person of stealing from the homeless — which, Miss Manners realizes, is likely what she is counting on.
But you could suggest there was a miscommunication: “I am so sorry, I should have been more clear when you asked for that card. These items are meant for the indigent. They are not for us.”
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am finding that whenever I go out to a social event, or even a restaurant, I am either being captured by a camera or someone has taken candid pictures without my knowledge.
In the past, I had always assumed that picture-taking was a matter of consent and good manners. I like pictures, but feel I need to be ready for them.
Again, just this weekend, a friend sent me a couple of shots she took while I was talking to mutual friends at a party. I hadn’t known they were being taken. I didn’t want to seem difficult, so I said “thanks” and didn’t comment further, but I would have preferred to have been asked.
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It would take too long to list the venues at which this seems to happen these days. I wonder if we need to enter spaces with consent forms in hand.
GENTLE READER: A slightly more practical approach is to make it hard on the photographer.
Miss Manners’ logic is simple enough for someone devoted to social media to follow: It is impolite to take a photograph without asking permission. Your friend is not a rude person; therefore, if their camera appears to be pointing your way, that must be a mistake. As such, if you turn away, or if your hand covers your face, you are not intentionally ruining their shot.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
