Ask Eric: Speaker needs lessons, you know

Dear Eric: The president of my religious institution is, in my view, a fine leader and a rotten speaker.

I am driven crazy by the number of instances of “you know,” “kind of” and asking “right?” in the middle of a statement. His speech is riddled with these. In the most recent gathering, for example, he said that he will “kind of” pass the microphone to those who wish to speak.

Ironically, the gentleman is an elementary school principal. I think he would be shocked at his number of speech tics if he listened to a recording. Can I diplomatically tell him?

Eric says: Here’s the thing about constructive criticism: if the person on the receiving end hasn’t asked for it and/or isn’t open to it, it’s not going to achieve its goal. So, first ask if he’s open to feedback.

This kind of guidance, if welcome, can be quite useful. I like to lead with a compliment. I let the compliment end in a full stop, rather than a comma. This way, the listener is able to hear the compliment as its own stand-alone idea, rather than just a gateway to get to what I really want to say.

Focusing on what you appreciate about his public speaking and leadership also may help to right-size the issues you have with the interjections. If you’re invested in the content and want to be able to hear it better, that can be a shared goal.

Be respectful, succinct and remember that speech is personal and some habits are hard to break.

Dear Eric: I am very friendly with a neighbor and asked if she and her husband would like to go out to dinner with us. She seemed enthusiastic, and we set a date. Then she said they would be out of town, so we changed the date. The day before, she texted that she was too sick to go. I texted “sorry.”

I haven’t heard anything else. Should I contact her?

Eric says: Mean? I’m not so sure. The “sorry” may have come across as abrupt or churlish. And maybe you meant it that way. But you also simply could have been confirming the cancellation.

It would be on your neighbor to reach out about rescheduling once she was feeling better. However, if you’d still like to cultivate this relationship — and because you described it as “very friendly,” I suspect you might — I’d reach out again. Perhaps by telling her that you hope she’s feeling better, and you’d like to set another date, if she’s open to it. If she cancels again, I’d leave it be.

Dear Eric: We were visiting my sister-in-law. A few days after we got home, I called her. She told me she believed our dog peed on the carpet outside the bathroom door.

She said she didn’t smell the spot or touch it to see if the carpet was wet but cleaned it up. Of course, I was mortified, and said, “Oh no, we won’t be staying with you anymore.”

I am having a hard time getting past this, especially because she didn’t smell or touch it. Plus, we have visited many times with our dog and never had such an issue.

Eric says: Don’t banish yourself yet. It doesn’t sound like your sister-in-law is holding this against you. It also sounds like she’s taken care of the offending spot, pee or not.

These things happen from time to time with pets. You might call your sister-in-law back to check in and see if there was any additional cleaning that needed to be done. If so, you might consider paying for it. But it sounds like it wasn’t a huge mess to begin with, and now it’s just a memory.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110.