![]() ![]() Dates and friends will not appreciate your coughing in company,' said Ms Bryant. 'Although it's tempting, battle on despite your symptoms. As long as you're coughing, you're infectious.ĭon't be afraid to say "No" to Christmas drinks. 'Just wash your hands and have a cough sweet to suppress the symptoms.'Īnd if you've taken time off don't come back to work until you've recovered or you still risk spreading germs. 'But if you're going to be signing a multi-million pound deal with someone who has just flown in from China, then it makes more sense to turn up. 'If you have a job where you can easily work at home it makes sense to work there,' she added. Whether you take the week off will depend on your job, said Ms Bryant. Try offering people who are irritating you a solution that has worked for you, such as cough sweets, rather than being confrontational or rude, says Jo Bryantĥ. 'If you're the person who is ill, have the confidence to say: "I've got a stinking cold, so, I'm going to keep my distance and I won't shake your hand"', said Ms Bryant. 'As the government guidelines say, then "bin it".'Īnd be prepared - 'A well-mannered commuter has anti-bacterial hand gel,' said Ms Bryant.įunnily enough, 83 per cent of us will happily shake hands with someone with a cough, perhaps because we don't realise this puts us at risk of picking up germs.īut if you have a cough Ms Bryant claims it's better to be honest and keep your hands to yourself. It's about hand avoidance, cough into a tissue. 'The main problem with coughing is the poor cough hygiene. 'At school children are now taught to cough into the crook of their arm, rather than put their hand over their mouth, it looks a bit dramatic but it's a definite improvement from when I was at school and everyone coughed and spluttered everywhere. 'We're getting more germ aware,' said Ms Bryant. 'If there's anything you can do to suppress the symptoms, like sucking a cough sweet, or washing your hands, that will stop the spread of germs.' ![]() With coughing etiquette, you have a duty of care to other people. 'Etiquette is really just about how we treat other people,' said Ms Bryant. ![]() If you're the one with the cough don't splutter over your loved ones. Here are her fail-safe tips for navigating the coughing season without losing friends and alienating people with your projectile germs: If you're invited to tea at the Palace, she's your woman (you must stop eating when the queen does or risk a royal faux pas). 'We carry on, we still go to work and even to the gym and still go around shaking hands.'īryant now works advising foreign businesses on the nuances of English manners. We have a very British attitude to coughing. 'Year after year I see poor cough etiquette from spluttering through social occasions, to coughing over a colleague's desk. 'Coughing season can be an absolute minefield,' agrees etiquette expert Jo Bryant, who has worked at the etiquette guide book Debrett's for over a decade. Public transport is another cause for coughing conflict, says the new research, with half of those surveyed complaining that coughing commuters splutter over them with little or no concern for their fellow passengers' health. Men, however, are more sympathetic, with more than one third saying they wait on their partner hand and foot when they have a cough and a quarter offering to take over all the household chores. If you'd rather not alienate work co-workers a day in bed could be the answer that is, unless, you live with a woman, in which case you risk putting your relationship under pressure, since one quarter of women (24 per cent) say their partner's cough annoys them. And this is where you will face a typical dilemma of the coughing season: to soldier on spluttering in meetings, hacking into your handkerchief, or to stay home tucked up under your duvet only to lose hard-won brownie points with your boss. ![]()
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