Happy New Year?

We went over this last year at the beginning of February, but I thought I’d bring it up a little earlier this year, for reasons that will become obvious.

I’d like to once again review our standard nationwide protocols when it comes to saying, “Happy New Year.”

As a general rule, you’re pretty safe just shotgunning “Happy New Year” out into the world until around today, the 10th of January. With friends and family, you’ve got a much more relaxed timeline, depending on the first time you see or talk to them after New Year’s Eve. A close family member or a really good friend can comfortably receive a HNY well into January.

With work, you’ll want to keep the 10th in mind as a good guideline. Even before the 10th, however, you’ll need to exercise caution in the workplace. Hopefully you took heed after last year’s discussion and have done so.

It can be a major business faux pas to wish the same colleague a HNY more than once in the office or on a Zoom call. Similarly, wishing a client or vendor a HNY for a second time on a call can lead to awkwardness. You’ll either want to keep a list of all the people you’ve wished a HNY to, or have an earlier cut-off date.

I would suggest the earlier cut-off date, since someone else finding your list can lead to more awkwardness during your embarrassing explanation, or a trip to HR if you refuse to give a plausible one. It makes people nervous when Bob in accounting has an unexplained list of officemates with some of the names crossed off.

If you are on the receiving end of an embarrassingly late or doubled-up HNY at the office, you have a few options. You can go with the friendly “Right back atcha,” or the more formal, “And also with you.” Whatever happens, try your best not to embarrass the ill-timed HNY’er. Maintain decorum, plow forward with the conversation, then casually send them this column in about a week.

Wishing a HNY to the clerk at the grocery store, the person behind the counter at the coffee place, or your server at a restaurant needs to end right around the 4th or so. You might still be in the holiday mood and want to be friendly and wish them a HNY, but they’ve had the HNY exchange six thousand times by then and they’re just done with it, so have a heart and let them off the hook.

If you’re a friendly sort, and like to wish random passersby on the street a HNY, stick with the 10th as your guideline. Anything past that and it’s getting weird. If you want to say HNY at the end of January, it better be to your immediate family members, and even then they’re going to think you’re being weird.

And for the love of Pete, under no circumstances should a HNY come out of your mouth or land in a text or email after January has ended. This is the official, 100%, no wiggle room, cease and desist, cut-off day.

February is a strict HNY no-fly zone. No one wants to hear it. It’s cold, many people have started their taxes, and pretty soon we all have to figure out what to do about Valentine’s Day.

Happy New Year!

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Have a Nice Autumn

We as a people need to figure out how to be nicer. Specifically, we need to solve the problem of “Have a nice day.”

I think we can all agree that we need more nice in this world and less mean. We need more love and less hate. More sweet and less sour. More good and less bad. More pizza and less kale. You get what I’m trying to say.

One good starting point for that effort would simply be for everyone to be more pleasant to each other. To that end, like many of us, I try to wrap up most of my interactions with the tried and true, “Have a nice day.”

In the spirit of needing more nice in the world, occasionally I’ll step it up to a “Have a great day,” but even that isn’t going as far as I’d like. Now, don’t get me wrong – having a great day is what I wish for everyone, but it’s simply not as far-reaching as I’d like to be.

What I mean is, I don’t just want people to have a nice day. I want them to have a life-long series of nice, or even great, days. Expressing that, unfortunately, is where the problem lies.

We should all be wishing that stranger on the street or behind the counter a lifetime of nice days, but saying “Have a nice life” does exactly the opposite of that. If you say “Have a nice life” to someone, you’re basically telling them to go jump in a lake. Nothing says, “I never want to see you again,” quite like “Have a nice life.”

If you wanted to try to step up your interval of wished happiness just a little from the standard one day, you could tell someone to “Have a nice week.” That’s nice and all, but it gets confusing to the other person, because it implies that you will see them again in seven days. You’re trying to spread happiness, not confusion.

You can tell someone to “Have a nice weekend,” which is perfectly acceptable and non-confusing, provided you do it on Friday, or possibly even Thursday. If you try to get away with it on Wednesday, people will only envy you for your ridiculously short work week, which completely takes away from the nice sentiment. If you say it on a Monday or Tuesday, they’ll just think you have no idea what day it is and might start to worry about you, again, defeating the purpose.

“Have a nice month?” Same “Am I supposed to see you again in thirty days?” problem as “Have a nice week,” but with the added issue of possibly bringing unwarranted worry into their lives. What’s next month? Is something supposed to happen that I don’t know about? Taxes? Holidays? Is my mother-in-law coming to visit? What did he mean by that??

Out past a month, your only options left are seasons. If you wish someone a nice spring, fall, or winter, they’re just going to look at you funny, or ask, “What the hell do you mean by that?” The only one that really works is “Have a nice summer,” but it has a big problem. It’s only good for teachers and students. If you say it to anyone else, it will backfire. You’re just reminding them that all the teachers and students have the summer off and they don’t. Not cool.

So there’s the problem, America. We want to spread more good in the world, but we’re largely unable to do it any faster than one day at a time. How do we speed this up? How do we extend the time interval of good wishes?

“Have a nice year?” Probably not.

At this point, it seems like we’re stuck with wishing each other one nice day at a time, so maybe the answer is simply adding something else nice and complimentary on top of it?

How about “Have a nice day, you magnificent bastard!”?

You guys try it out and let me know how it works.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

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