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34 - Sunday, September 9, 1990 - North Shore News

LIFESTYLES

New relationship with ex
can prove to be confusing

DEAR MISS MANNERS — My husband and I divorced
two months ago, after two years of separation. We have
one daughter under 10. We continue to go out together
with our daughter (to shows, movies, dinner) and occa-
sionally go out together without her fo dinner, movies or
plays. As a matter of fact, we get along much better now
than we did when we were married.

Judith
Martin

MISS MANNERS
My ex-husband is up for a big
promotion to the presidency of a
large corporation. My friends
have suggested that 1 may be
jeopardizing his chances of getting
this wonderful new position,
because of our confusing relation-
ship. | would never want to do
anything to hinder his career.

A second problem is that if he
does get the position, a large
reception will be given in his
honor. Ig it inappropriate for me
to attend? Should I just send our
daughter? If you say it is OK,
should I be in the receiving line if
asked? If so, how should I be in-
troduced?

GENTLE READER — Miss
Manners congratulates you on the
civility of this relationship and can
hardly imagine how your former
husband’s employers could hold it
against him. She would not like to
do business with a corporation
that required its divorced execu-
tives to maintain hostilities with
former spouses.

She would think it more inhib- °

iting to your husband’s social life
than his professional life to have
around an apparent wife who isn’t
a wife.

Appearing in public in the role
of a wife is, however, confusing.
It is not customary to expose
strangers in a receiving line to
such an interesting situation
without giving them the time or
information to grasp it. Miss
Manners has no objection to your
attending the reception, but if
there is a question of the family’s
being represented in the receiving
line, she suggests that your daugh-
ter be that representative.

DEAR MISS MANNERS — I
had a somewhat frustrating prob-
fem with my bank, which was
made worse by the terrible sound
quality of their telephone system.
Finally I wrote a letter to my loan
officer, complaining about the
problem and rather pointedly
mentioning the poor phone
system.

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I was totally unprepared for his
reaction. He immediately called
me and Saunched into a lengthy
and angry tirade on the ‘‘obnox-
fousness’’ of my remarks. ‘You
see,’ he said in a condescending
fashion, ‘‘many people in business
these days use speaker phones,
which may give an echo sound to
the cailer. If you think you're be-

ing spoken to on a speaker phone,
it is simple enough to request that
the person you're calling take the
call on the receiver.”*

GENTLE READER — Never
mind the quality of the telephone
system. It is the quality of bank
manners that needs fixing.

Assuming that your letters of
complaint are decently framed —
a rude one would not excuse
return rudeness, but Miss Manners
confesses to being worried about
yours — it is time to write another
one. The banker's supervisor
ought to be alerted to the fact that
one of the employees is bawling
out the customers.

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