Q. Having recently relocated to my company’s Russian office, I now report to an uncouth Homo sovieticus. Knowing he’s the product of a society that had no time for so-called ‘bourgeois niceties’, I try not to judge when he slurps or speaks with his mouth full or places his knife and fork away from himself and against his plate in the 12 o’clock position at the end of a meal. I can even steel myself to bear his obsessive tooth-picking both at table and in the office. But much harder is his habitual nose-picking and bizarre tendency to rest thumb and forefinger inside his nostrils when talking to me. I try to look away, but then worry he’ll think I’m avoiding eye contact. Is there any way to gently encourage my boss to break his nasal fixation while keeping my job?
—Name and address withheld
A. Buy a pair of mirrored sunglasses with very large lenses and wear them on your head, as people do. Practise the positioning with a friend so that when you are talking to your boss you will still be able to look him directly in the eye but he will be unable to ignore his own reflection in the mirrored lenses. In this way you may bring him to his senses.
Q. What does one do about men persistently asking one out to a non-work-related ‘lunch’? I am not especially greedy and reasonably happily married so am at a loss to know how to respond to these overtures, however flattering, partly as they make presentational demands on the middle-aged female and equally because I worry that acceptance of kind lunch suggestions would set up some expectation that I am also keen to pursue an extra-mural relationship — after all, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
—R.J., London W11
A. Why not put the man off you for good by wearing a red nose, as in Red Nose Day, to the luncheon? If challenged, claim that people in need require help every day of the year and not just on one day. This should ensure that the invitations swiftly dry up.
Q. I flew to England, primarily to stay for a long weekend in the country with a potential client. First I stayed in London with an old friend who — annoyingly — had a cold, which I then caught. I knew my hypochondriac country host would not want me with a cold. But I thought it would do him less harm to catch a mild three-day cold than it would do me to go back to Nairobi, mission unaccomplished. So may I pass on a tip to readers? I turned up anyway and blamed my ‘allergy’ on the cat of my previous host, saying that I am now so sensitive I go on suffering for three days after exposure. Mary, it worked. I got my commission and he did not catch my cold.
—Name withheld, Nairobi
A. And who can blame you in a recession?
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