This restaurant incident was completely avoidable

DEAR MRS MANNERS: My wife and I met another couple for dinner at a restaurant and arrived 15 minutes before our reservation time. The other couple was not in the waiting area.

After my wife and I had sat for a while, we asked the hostess and found that our table neighbors had already been seated. When we spotted them in the dining room, they had already ordered drinks.

Although we didn't say anything, I thought it was rude that they had continued without us. I thought it was common courtesy to wait until everyone at the table was seated at the same time.

I know that many restaurants insist that all members of a group must be present before they are seated, but that was obviously not the case here.

Am I missing something?

DEAR READER: Restaurants refuse to seat incomplete guests to maximize revenue, not out of politeness. But because the practice is not applied uniformly, Miss Manners recommends polite diners tell her where they are when they arrive—a practice made relatively easy by the ubiquity of cell phones.

This does not preclude sitting down at a table that is ready, but she agrees that orders before everyone is there should be kept to a minimum.

[Dear Abby addressed the same issue recently. Here’s what she said.]

DEAR MRS MANNERS: My children's school district is the first organization I have dealt with in my professional career where employees routinely ignore their customers.

I try hard to make sure the person I'm contacting is the right person for my question. I send a targeted, respectful email and get no response.

In one case I probably didn't get an answer because I asked about something they did and what they weren't allowed to do. But in other cases it's a mystery.

I wrote to the assistant principal asking if my child could attend a community youth leadership conference without being counted as an absence. The registration deadline passed without a response and now it is too late.

I contacted another person at the school, who the conference organizers said was their contact, and asked if she would be willing to let us know about next year's conference when she receives the materials. Again, no response.

This is confusing because our child's previous school had six times as many students and this did not happen there.

How do you communicate politely with people who ignore you when you have no one else to turn to?

DEAR READER: People in your situation – and that's everyone – sometimes believe one of two false ideas.

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