Some people often say “”Hey”? today instead of “excuse me” or “pardon” or “I beg your pardon” when they haven’t heard or understood what it is that you have said. Is this a rude and discourteous response to someone’s conversation? How does it make you feel when someone replies to you with a straight or cranky look and they say “hey” abruptly.

If you are like many people, you may feel almost insulted but definitely disinclined to repeat in full what you have just said to elicit that response. It could make you feel rejected, hurt, angry and any number of other things. But one of the things it does do is to mark the person who responds to an unheard or misunderstood question with “hey” is that they are bad mannered individuals.

In a peer group of uneducated people hanging around a corner ’shooting the breeze’ it may be the accepted practice. This is a case of “birds of a feather, flocking together” so it may be acceptable to the group.

However, if you are in a job interview and one of the interviewers asks you a question that you haven’t heard properly or understood, and you respond with “hey?” then don’t expect to have a successful outcome to that interview simply because you have immediately shown that you have no respect for other people or their feelings and are highly unlikely to be a good team player. If you are going to be in a team, then you have to (a) be acceptable to the other team members and (b) have to be able to get along with the other team members.

If you are in a casual social situation and you turn to someone jokingly and say “hey, what’s that” with a smile on your face it could be construed as being playful but if you turn to someone and say “hey?” abruptly without a smile then you are most likely going to be thought of as being rude and or angry over something.

Spoken language and body language often mirror each other quite well in meaning when rude people say “hey”. Next time someone says it to you, remember to take note of their facial features when they do so and in particular their eyes. These will always give you the precise meaning of what they are feeling/thinking/meaning when they speak so rudely to you.

If a person is in a more formal social situation like a cocktail party or after-work drinks with colleagues and someone responds with “hey?” to something that you’ve said, take notice of how you feel at the time. Saying “hey” is rude in any educated social activity with colleagues and in a formal social setting like a cocktail party it is definitely a “No-No” if you want to be invited to the next social gathering.

If you are reading this you may be a member of one of the hundred’s of social book marking network sites now available on the internet. No matter which social network sites you prefer, courtesy is needed everywhere. The two most popular ones right now seem to be Twitter and Facebook. Over the past 12 months Facebook has had a few security scares and I have known Twitter to have had to close down for a short spell due to a cyber attack.

It doesn’t matter which social network site you belong to, the same rules need to apply as to everywhere on the internet and that is to be very careful with your private information. Identity theft is always on the prowl so you need to follow every precautionary rule you’ve ever heard of. Your safety depends on it.

To be a courteous person doesn’t mean you are obliged to give out or share your private details. You really do need to be very careful about anyone who asks for them. If you know or trust the person, then it’s a different kettle of fish, but if someone asks you for private information out of the blue, be very leery. If you seriously doubt their good intentions, report them. Someone else may not be as wise as you.

There are innumerable products and services available for Twitter to increase your followers and I suggest taking great care before you simply press the follow button if you have been contacted by someone who has added you into their group.

One of the ways I was caught (and I hope it was the only way!) was to check the ‘follow’ button before looking at their page. Porn thrives momentarily on Twitter and if you aren’t careful you could end up with your name following some rather undesirable contacts.

Full marks to the Twitter moderators group though once they have been advised of these undesirables, they are gone so fast you can’t hear the “twep” as their feathers fly. But they are in an industry that perseveres and sooner or later another one will try to get in on the conversations.

A nice social network courtesy that always makes me feel welcome and warm is to receive a ‘thank you’ message from someone once I have clicked on their ‘follow’ button. I always think this is a very pleasant and good mannered thing to do and I seem to remember who has done it and when I see their tweets I am more inclined to see what they have to say. So apart from it being a nice courtesy, it’s also a great way to increase ones readership. And my experience to date is that they usually have something very interesting to say.

These are the Twitter members we all want to find and it seems the best way of finding these like minded people is to follow them back with a “thank you for the follow message”