Table Manners Dining Etiquette Business Dining The Short Course Techs Young Professionals & Upcoming Graduate University Etiquette Business Etiquette Dinner

    

1. Learn how to survive a mocktail party: how to hold a napkin, glass, and a plate, in your left hand, functionally.

2. Drink: (without poking someone in the eye;) keep your elbows and arms down close to your sides. Pour liquid into your mouth, from your wrist. Do this silently. Know how to respond to an offer of an alcoholic drink. During daylight, order a “Virgin” drink over a “Non-Alcoholic one.” It is easier to say. Appear to be drinking less than the host, hostess, or person who is picking up the tap. At an evening event, make any drink Virgin (especially after your first.) When not drinking, keep your right hand warm, dry, and free.

3. Mingle. Be good company. Know where to wear that name badge. Do introductions (correctly,) senior then junior or junior to senior. When someone gives you a business card, know what to do with it and what to have to give back.

4. Learn seats of honor: where to stop at a table. At a family dinner, know an invocation acceptable to your host’s culture.

5. Place a napkin in your lap before eating or drinking anything.

6. Maintain your cover: (place setting for one,) or establish one.

7. Look for drinks to be served from the right (refreshing.) Look for glasses in a place setting to be left in place until after you have left the table, (unless it is a pre-dinner drink served on a napkin, or you are doing very formal dining.) Learn what to do after reading that reusable menu.

8. Look for food to be served (counter-clockwise) from the left (leaving.)

9 Take small amounts of food. (Eat in courses over eating in piles.) Avoid taking too little, or too much, or more in visual calories than those dining around you. Try a little of everything unless restricted by religion, health, or culture.

10. Avoid leaving teeth marks in bread that you are eating. Avoid bread until you receive an entrée; remember bread is not a first course.

11. Eat each meal in an accepted style. Know which fork to use and when and how. Cut items in only one direction, one or two pieces at a time. (Yes, you may eat only one thing at a time.) Avoid eating too little, too much, or too fast, or acting as if the meal is to be your last. Make as little noise as possible.

12. When at a loss as to how to eat a particular dish, watch the person who made or ordered it. You can ask, "How am I to eat this?" The lesson most likely will begin with a smile.

13. Avoid adding salt or pepper to food, unless it is to radishes, celery, corn, a potato or salad. When salt is requested, ensure both pepper and salt are passed.

14. (Sit up straight. Bring food to you.) Close your mouth around the edge of any fork placed in it. Chew each portion twenty-four times, with your mouth closed, and saver each bite. Taste buds live and digestion begins in the month not the stomach – yes that’s right.

15. Place your implements in the rest position for the style in which you are eating, anytime you want.

16. Take a hand rest often. Rest the heels of your hands on the edge of the table. You can rest your elbows on the table - in between courses. (Continentally, you can talk with a knife and fork in your hands. Keep them low.)

17. Talk, in business, some unseen food can still be in your mouth. Keep the people at your table company. (Remember, for some, your conversation is the entertainment.) Talk about things other than work (unless it is the purpose for the meal). Know what to do when someone stops to visit you at table.

18. Pace yourself. Eat each course in such a manner as to finish it along with the person to your right. In public, leave a little something of each course on your plate, and of each drink in each glass. Leave each course plate in position until it is removed by a waitperson or replaced by the next plate. Look for food to be removed from the right (retrieving.) (Avoid helping: passing your plates, unless asked, even when you use to wait tables. At dinner is not the place to display this trait.)

19. When it is time, “Take a break.” Before temporarily leaving the table place flatware in the rest position for the style in which you are eating; get up; place your napkin in your chair. When its time, sing the company song. When it is time, dance. Let the host pay (and tip) where required.

20. Before permanently leaving a table, place flatware in the finished position for the style in which you are eating.

21. Place your napkin in a mock fold to the left of your place setting, (again napkin to the side.) Avoid putting any napkin on your used plate or in any glass. Avoid staking plates or making plates"trash." Get up and push in your chair until it is six inches away from the edge of the table.

22. Say thank you. Then, say thanks again later by note.

23. Remember reciprocity. Read and research as much as possible the culture in which you will be the host. Watch each act of eating with an open mind, eye, and heart. Practice diligently. While eating in company, there are things to learn and do. – Dining is a Dance, University Etiquette Business Dining 101, this is the short course.