On etiquette

Years ago, someone once said to me, "Geez, do you always know the right thing to say?!" I took that as a real compliment becuase back then (and fast-forward almost a decade to now), I find it difficult to know what to say in everyday situations, and I'm not really known to possess the highly-useful trait of tact (also known as lacking a "gatekeeper" or having a poor brain-to-mouth filter). But other than in business situations, where clearly it is better to say the right thing, rather than honesty (in most cases), is it important to say the right thing rather than the "first draft" product from your brain? I am not sure the case is quite so clear once we leave the workplace.  Sure it's great to talk to a friend who always knows the right thing to say, because it will leave you loving them, loving yourself, loving the world, and everything else will make sense.  But sometimes I want to cut the crap and just talk for real, even if the conversations go into awkward territory.  I think I'm just envious of those people who know how to talk the talk - is this what we call charisma (or spelt 'kharizma' if you watch xfactor...)? 

On a related note, I am really fascinated about the right things to do in everyday situations - that is, etiquette. I have started an unofficial list of good etiquette practices that I feel are ways to keep society functioning efficiently.  Yes, there is a lot of energy that is just wasted (time, frustration) and it's time for it to stop.  

Here's a few:

• On escalators, slow lane is the left lane, right lane is for people who want to move-it move-it
• Shops - have one queue leading up to your checkouts so the inefficiency is dispersed across all checkouts.  I don't want to be stuck behind someone that wants a price check on their items.
• People at checkouts - I know you're not required to do this, but if you are next in line and have a trolley-full of items and I am behind you and I have 2 items, it will make my day if you say we can trade places
• Medical centres - still not quite sure why you ask me to move from the general waiting area to the waiting room 2 when it's almost my turn to see the doctor.  It cuts short my back-issue germ-infected women's magazine reading and Dr Phil-watching (I'm female = multi-tasking).  On the up-side, I know that all the drugs in your locked medical cabinet are indeed within their use-by dates, I can possibly recognise some (but not all) signs of meningococcal, and some of the isolation periods for common childhood afflictions, all thanks to the helpful posters in waiting room 2.  But back to the point, wouldn't it be easier for the doctor to just buzz the reception when they're done, and then the receptionist can tell me to go straight to the doctor, or if I'm not there, call the next person to go straight to the doctor's room.  This saves you a room, Medical Centre. Kaching.
• Restaurants - don't ask me if I want the dessert menu.  Because if you do, I'm going to have to ask around the table and people are going to be non-committal so we'll end up saying "Yes, we'll have a look".  Even if no-one is really keen on dessert, we want to see the dessert menu to make sure we are not missing out on something like a snow egg ala MasterChef.  That is all.