Dear Mary | 31 January 2013

Q. Having recently relocated to my company’s Russian office, I now report to an uncouth Homo sovieticus. Knowing he’s the product of a society that had no time for so-called ‘bourgeois niceties’, I try not to judge when he slurps or speaks with his mouth full or places his knife and fork away from himself and against his plate in the 12 o’clock position at the end of a meal. I can even steel myself to bear his obsessive tooth-picking both at table and in the office. But much harder is his habitual nose-picking and bizarre tendency to rest thumb and forefinger inside his nostrils when talking to me. I try to look away, but then worry he’ll think I’m avoiding eye contact. Is there any way to gently encourage my boss to break his nasal fixation while keeping my job?
—Name and address withheld

A. Buy a pair of mirrored sunglasses with very large lenses and wear them on your head, as people do.