DEAR MISS MANNERS: I frequently attend team lunches and dinners with my immediate department members, both supervisors and associates. These dining experiences are mostly personal affairs and come after a week of hard teamwork.

We work in an industry where we will be in one location for a few months, and then move on to another city. We all get along and have each other’s back.

But here is the problem: There are two members of our team who are in their 20s, and they both have the worst table manners! They set their bread on the bare table, as well as any soiled cutlery. They cut up their entire meal into tiny pieces like they are toddlers. I could go on, but you get the idea.

These are nice young women! They are college-educated. Each one complains that they never get a second date after dining at a nice restaurant, and I understand why.

I am well aware it is not my duty to advise them of how to butter a dinner roll. But I feel sorry for them and am frequently embarrassed for them. Should I just accept there is nothing any of us can do?

GENTLE READER: Although there is, today, too much blurring of the professional and personal spheres, it was always understood that an otherwise promising mentee who did not know how to speak or behave in polite company would be at a disadvantage in a professional career -- and that a good mentor might have to help make up this deficiency.

Perhaps you can identify a senior member of the team who might act in this more general capacity for these two -- as a professional mentor, that is, knowing that finding opportunities for them to improve their table manners will be only a part of their extracurricular education. This might make a positive difference for their careers -- while not putting anyone in the position of promising that any second dates hinge upon the superior etiquette discernment of 20-something males.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My niece worked at a well-known retail store in the 1980s. She told me they were required to greet customers because research has shown that people are less likely to steal after a personal exchange. Now I bristle a bit and feel insulted when I am greeted at a store.

GENTLE READER: Rest assured that in a few years, new research will show that the original research was incorrect for any number of reasons. Miss Manners has stopped following the details.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A good friend asked me to join her and a few other people for lunch. This was not something I wanted to do, so I claimed to have conflicts on the first two dates she suggested.

Then she said, “Well, what would be a good day for you?” I said something about just not being sociable, but it didn’t feel very good. What could I have said, short of “never”?

GENTLE READER: “Let me get back to you.”

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I do a lot of recreational traveling. In some cases, we take local tours. I’m finding that these tours often include a significant number of comments using America as a source of ridicule.

How should I handle this? Just stand there and be humiliated?

GENTLE READER: There are three general approaches in the situation you describe, but only one that Miss Manners finds acceptable -- a point on which, you may be surprised to hear, she believes the two American political parties should be in full agreement. After all, how one feels about one’s government and how one speaks about it to strangers are different questions.

To start, bear in mind three principles: First, you are a guest in another person’s country, and it is rude to belittle a guest (as they are apparently doing).

Second, you are in a public setting in which you, to a small extent, are representing your country.

Third, one rudeness does not justify another.

The possible approaches are to side with your hosts, either directly or by implication; or, at the opposite extreme, to go on the attack, raising your voice and returning insult for insult. The final option is to register offense in a quiet and dignified way.

It is, of course, the last that Miss Manners strongly recommends -- not only as the proper course, but also as the most effective.

Those choosing the first option (agreement) will find that what follows is not respect, but mistreatment; those choosing the second (returning fire) are merely providing confirmation of what your hosts already believe -- as well as fresh material for their next round of insults.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my husband and I treat family to dinner, my husband insists on asking me how much we should tip. He doesn’t lower his voice when he asks, and then he argues about tipping the typical 20%.

It was so embarrassing when we took his nephews out to dinner that one of them asked if he could leave the tip instead. When we took my son and daughter-in-law out to celebrate a milestone birthday, my husband made sure to let them know how expensive the dinner was.

I was raised that when you invite people out for dinner, you sign off on the bill and that’s it. It’s rude to ensure the whole table knows how much dinner cost.

If we have bills due, he also used to talk about that in front of family. He’s notoriously cheap, and when I try talking to him, he gets mad.

Am I being unreasonable to ask him to keep this information between him and myself? We can certainly afford it, and it’s really embarrassing.

GENTLE READER: Perhaps you could, in private, convince him that you are sometimes going to insist on paying, whether he agrees or not. Miss Manners suggests that you explain that the purpose of paying is to engender good feelings, but that he is killing that. And therefore -- this should hit home -- he is wasting the money when he makes it clear to everyone how much he grudges paying.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I went to stay with a dear friend of many years who had moved several states away. Never having stayed at her house before, I was dismayed to find that the television in the main living area was on ALL the time.

The political views expressed were very extreme. It was also very loud, because her husband is hard of hearing. I knew they supported a different political party, but we never actually talked politics in the past, and it is only recently that politics have become so divisive.

The same thing happened to another friend who went away to stay with relatives. How can this situation be dealt with tactfully with the hosts -- if at all? I shall not visit that couple again.

GENTLE READER: Which solves your immediate problem. But even though fewer people are watching television these days, you are describing two of the major social problems of our time: avoiding interacting with others and flaunting one’s political views.

Why would your dear old friend and hostess preclude having conversation with you? Miss Manners would have hoped that the closeness of the relationship would allow you to talk over your different political views in a civilized fashion. But if not, you should not have been subjected to listening to theirs -- and secondhand, at that.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Years ago, my fiance and I were planning our wedding when one of our parents passed away. We put the entire thing on hold, and then occasionally talked of getting married -- for the next 25 years.

We finally decided to have a small ceremony, with a guest limitation set by the venue. It was delightful, and just what we wanted.

After the ceremony, we sent announcements out to our friends and family who had not been invited. This is not a gift grab or anything; we just wanted to let them know, and hoped they would be happy for us. In addition to the pictures, we included a short note letting them know of the guest list restrictions.

My, oh, my. I have yet to hear from anyone in my family with a “Congratulations!” I hear instead, “Well, I thought we were closer,” “You should have told us ahead of time” and “I guess you don’t need anything from us.”

I know it is too late, but should we have told people ahead of time? I was hoping for a genuine surprise, and happiness that we had finally made it official -- not a guilt trip.

GENTLE READER: Sadly, people have come to equate weddings with commercial entertainment. If there is an event they want to attend, they understand that they must buy into it by sending a present or, more likely, a donation to whatever fund the couple -- who might share that commercial attitude -- have set up.

So if there is no event they may attend, there is no reaction. It does not seem to occur to them to express good wishes simply because people they know have married.

Miss Manners can only tell you that she is as appalled at this as you are.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)