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Dear Thelma:I belong to a few organizations to which another person belongs. She is very active in the community, but she is the rudest person I have ever met. She will cut down speakers at meetings. She will cut down owners of businesses at Chamber of Commerce functions. She talks during events when speakers are talking. The list goes on and on.

It is a small town and people just say, "Oh, `Sally' is just being Sally," but she has caused people to leave organizations and people don't join others because of her. Any suggestions?

Answer: The key words for me in your question are "small town." In a small town, community service organizations and opportunities are limited in number. By necessity, everybody belongs to the same organizations. Yours sounds like a case in which there probably isn't room to avoid her and there may not be abundant options for community involvement and networking away from her.

If your town is that small, she should be made aware of how her actions are affecting others, and it can be done in a positive way. If I were in that small town, I would keep track of specific examples of times she is rude or ignores good manners. In a personal and private conversation, I would tell her: "People were offended when you criticized the banquet speaker," or "I feel I must let you know that people are leaving the chamber because they heard your negative comments at the meeting last month."

There is nothing wrong with making those kinds of honest comments when the poor behavior is affecting so many people.

Dear Thelma: There is a question going around our office about whether a baby shower should be a surprise for the mom-to-be. Please help to settle this.

Answer: I don't see anything wrong with planning a surprise shower for a mother-to-be. Deciding to throw a surprise party for most any occasion is fine, if that's what the group wants to do.

There is a lot of fun and emotion to put into planning a surprise. A successful surprise always takes a group of people working together to get it done, and it could be fun for an office to do. It gets people working together and creates another opportunity in the office for relationship building.

So, unless there's a real chance that such a surprise as this could put her into early labor, I think you can proceed with surprise plans.

It's no surprise: Good manners never go out of style.