For better or for worse, Phillyist isn't my day job. A quick glance at my bio will tell you that I work at a local communications firm. That means I do a lot of things, but most pertinent to this week's column, I do press outreach. I want people in the media to talk about my firm's clients. Not just newspapers and television stations, either. We want people to blog about our clients. As bloggers......

Let's face it: in this day and age, most (if not all) of us are signed into some sort of instant messaging service while we're at work. For better or for worse, this world of 24/7 connectivity has us chatting the day away, often while we'd be better off just getting our work done. Many employers are aware that we do this. Some are more bothered than others, considering instant messaging anything ranging from......

This week's Monday Manners will be a quick one, but that doesn't make it unimportant. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't been covered yet. (Or at least, if it has, I cannot for the life of me find it.) The simple theme is this: if you screw up, say you're sorry. Admitting to a mistake is sometimes hard. It's often embarrassing. But unless you want to burn some serious bridges, it's essential, no matter how......

I've used this column before to emphasize that one should not call into question the ethnic, religious, sexual, or racial identity of a person just because he or she doesn't fit into a stereotypical mold. Jews can be naturally blonde, gay men can play sports (just ask John Amaeci), and not all black people have to speak or dress like rappers. It's the twenty-first century. Get over it. I'd now like to expand the......

I take public transit to work every day. I often take it home, as well. Once in a while, I'll hop on the bus—but more often than not, I'm underground, first on the Broad Street Line and then on the El. And my intra-city commute gives me ample opportunity to observe bad behavior. And as I've mentioned on more than one occasion, SEPTA is like a hotbed for rudeness. Sure, there are those occasional polite......

After five months of unemployment, I'm happy to say I'm now in a job that was worth the wait. I love my job; I love the people I work with; I love my office. We occupy the entire floor of an Old City rowhome. There are no individual offices—we work in one big room and the ideas and conversation (and, admittedly, gossip) all flow freely. There's always music on, the decor is hip yet......

Although I frequently lament abuse of the English language, I'm also the first to admit that the internet has a language of its own. I'm not talking about L337, I'm not talking about LOL, and I'm not talking about the bad grammar that permeates most MySpace profiles. I'm referring to the language of hypertext, which makes it possible for us to write sentences like: "Don't be that guy" and "Her attitude toward adoption reminded......

I hate the Post Office. Not the actual organization. I should be more specific. I hate going to the Post Office. It's not that the clerks are often unnecessarily unfriendly. It's not that I wish I could just email the contents of the heavy box I'm holding and save the paper. It's that the people who visit the post office often... suck. And so, to avoid being the target of not just my ire,......

I just got an email that really annoyed me. Somebody posted to a listserv that I'm on, saying that s/he (I'm not being vague for anonymity... it was an androgynous name) had won a pair of very expensive tickets to Kooza, the Cirque du Soleil production that just opened here in Philadelphia. Unable to use the tickets him/herself, the emailer offered them to the first interested party—for full face value. This, boys and girls,......

I don't necessarily advocate stealing somebody else's unprotected wireless internet connection. Because that is illegal. And telling you to do something illegal on Phillyist could get us into a lot of trouble. But let's face it: legal or not, everyone has done it at least once. And, more than likely, you're going to continue to do it. Sure, with Wireless Philadelphia, you could pay a nominal fee to access the internet from most places......

Ross and I were invited down to Atlantic City this past weekend for a mini blogger meetup sponsored by the four Harrah's casinos there. I'll write more about that in this week's Return to Sender, but for now, I'm only mentioning it to set the scene. In all, there were ten of us in attendance. The two of us from Philly, two others from Chicago, and the balance from New York City. During dinner,......

Oh, don't worry. I'm not here to tell you how to plan your seating at a formal dinner party. (Seat couples across from each other, rather than next to each other. Put people with similar interests near each other. Keep your more loquacious guests separated by your quieter ones so that the conversation isn't dominated by one end of the table.) You can get those tips in any old Miss Manners book at Barnes......

Ah, The Franklin Institute. Sorry, The Franklin. (As an aside, what the fuck is up with that? We know that Philadelphia is all Ben-obsessed and everything, but honestly, when your marketing people make it harder to Google you or find pictures of you on Flickr, they deserve to be fired, not to have their efforts rewarded with rebranding. I'm going to continue to call it The Franklin Institute. Period.) Who would've thought that The Franklin......

Dear SEPTA: Fuck you, too. The other day, I was trying to get a bus. I could see it coming up on the stop. Just one problem: I was stranded on the median, unable to finish crossing the street before the light changed. I waved frantically at the bus, hoping that the driver, as many bus drivers often do, would see me and let me on, even though by the time the light changed,......

Suits, it seems, once a mainstay of American corporate culture, are fast on the road to disappearance, only ever seen, really, at weddings, funerals, and the occasional court date. On the one hand, I'm not really going to complain about the ever-increasing popularity of blue jeans. On the other, this makes me a little sad. Few things are sexier than a man (helloooo, James Bond) or woman (Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct, even before she......

Yesterday's New York Times ran a rather long piece called "How Do You Prove You're a Jew?", and while it may seem an unconventional topic for a manners column, I'd like to expound a bit upon it. Have no fear: even if you don't have the time or the inclination to read the original Gershom Gorenberg essay, I'm only using it as a jumping-off point for this column, and I promise not to allude......

A friend of mine had a rather interesting encounter on a train last week. You see, she has a new baby (I've mentioned her before) and her own business, and as you can imagine, she's often pretty pressed for time. She's great at what she does, and amazingly enough, even with the baby, she always manages to complete everything she needs to do by the time she needs to have it completed. But sometimes,......

I don't drive very much in the city, which is why I've written about things from a pedestrian's point of view, but never as a motorist. But still, I drive often enough that I figured it was due time for this column. It's a short one today, but it's about a decorous breach that many drivers often make: the forgetting of the wave. What is "the wave"? It's the acknowledgment of another driver who has......

I'm going to come out and say it: I hate Valentine's Day. And no, it's not because I'm historically single when it rolls around. I'm not single now, and I'm still against the holiday. Blame it on my hatred of chocolate. Blame it on my preference for yellow roses over red. But most of all, blame it on my high school. Or, more specifically, blame it on many of the girls I went to......

Okay. Super Bowl XLII was yesterday, and while I'll admit that few people were happier than I to see Tom Brady's cute little ass handed to him by Little Brother Manning (and I usually hate The Giants), I didn't gloat too much to my New Englander friends. And I certainly didn't go out and mock every Patriots jersey-wearing sportsfan at the bar around the corner. (Yes, believe it or not, there are some Pats fans......

Let's face it: bad things happen to good people. It sucks, but it's a reality we all have to get used to. Whether it's a bitter divorce, an untimely death, or a serious illness, it's hard for those most immediately affected by tragedy—be it large or small—to have the courage and the coping mechanisms to eventually return to the status quo. And then there's you: one degree of separation and absolutely hopeless. What do......

I don't have kids, so I may not be the most qualified person to write about today's topic. But I have a mom and a dad, and I'm young enough to remember living under their parentage, so I'm not completely unqualified. Especially because I'm not writing this column on where to change diapers, whether breastfeeding in public is okay, or how to generally raise your kids. Instead, I'm only going to mention that, when......

I'm going to come right out and say this, even though it's something that a lot of people won't reveal about themselves: I'm in therapy. I say this not because of a serious case of verbal diarrhea, but because (a) I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of in disclosing this, and (b) it would be impossible to write this column without five and a half years of therapists' waiting rooms under my belt.......

Last weekend, Ross and I headed to King of Prussia to do some last-minute shopping. As you no doubt know, King of Prussia ten days before Christmas is insane and unpleasant, and after a few hours, you just really want to take a break. That's how we were feeling when we decided to have a few drinks and some chowdah at Legal Sea Foods. It wasn't too long before the couple behind us was......

Last week, I was invited, through Phillyist, to an RSVP-only event. The invitation indicated that there would be a 7PM reception prior to the 8PM event. When left without an adjective (cocktail, book-signing, meet-the-artist), the word "reception" indicates, especially given the timing of this one, that there will be drinks and light snacks available for the guests. This reception had drinks. It apparently had snacks, too – but when I arrived, all of seventeen......

As the weather gets yucky (this week's high temps will be at or near fifty, but we're looking at rain, rain, and more rain), I find myself reluctantly taking SEPTA more and more often, often during rush hour. Because I try to be a courteous SEPTA rider, I make a point of not putting my belongings on the seat beside me if the subway car, trolley, or bus seems to be getting crowded. I......

Last Thursday's Happy Hour was fun. Lots and lots of fun. We loved meeting all of you who came. (If you didn't come, trust us: you were really missing out!) We also loved learning that some of you get just as hung up on manners as we do. Case in point: the discussion I had with several of you early in the evening about tipping during an open bar. General consensus: do it. Sure,......

Okay, so your significant other has met the parents, and things weren't a disaster. In fact, everyone got along swimmingly. When the holidays were approaching, your parents even encouraged you to bring your significant other along. One problem: your parents are normal. The members of your extended family, who will be in attendance at Thanksgiving/Chanukah/Christmas dinner... are not. If left unprepared, your significant other might freak out and, tragedy of tragedies, leave you out......

While it's definitely debatable just how "southern" my Texan heritage makes me, Texas is definitely far enough south that kids take cotillion classes where they learn to do things like waltz and set a proper table. And it's the latter that I feel the need to bring up today. You see, I've noticed an epidemic lately. Not necessarily an epidemic of people who don't know the order in which to place the water, red......

I will admit that I am a faster walker than most. This fact can probably be attributed to two reasons: 1) the faithful consumption of four cans of Dr. Pepper per day and 2) a clear aversion to doing anything on my lunch break other than surfing the Internet and staining my khakis horrifically from my work desk. So maybe I am more inclined to see some Philadelphians’ funeral dirge-ian way of moving through the......