Students Learn Fine Art of Interview Dining

A well-attired undergraduate contingent of would-be investment bankers and consultants filled the Currier House Senior Common Room last night to study the etiquette of business dining from a master of manners.

The three quad houses joined with the Office of Career Services (OCS) to prepare students for dinner recruitment interviews with a mock business dinner and interview workshop, called "Mind Your Manners: Interviewing and Dining Etiquette."

With the business advising team from OCS, Susan Bourneuf, assistant to the Cabot House Senior Tutor, hired a professional etiquette consultant to lead the attendees' initiation into the rites of American business dining.

The consultant, Jodi R. Smith, takes her manners seriously.

Some of her tutees displayed elements of poise--straight backs and easy smiles--while others fiddled with their fingers and glanced nervously around the room.

But by starting with the basics, Smith left no one behind.

First, she said, don't gross anybody out.

Then she got technical, going through the table settings and mechanics of utensil work, both in the Continental and American styles.

Everyone ate in unison to the pace of Smith's commands.

"Lift your fork with your right hand, tines down, spear your chicken, cut down and to the left, down and to the left, switch your fork hand, put chicken in your mouth, replace the fork between twelve and four o' clock on your plate," she instructed while pacing amongst the tables.

With all the silverware and nervous hands, Smith repeated the watchword throughout the night, "Manners matter but safety first."

But however basic her commands seemed initially, the diners said they received them in relief.

And given the assurance by Smith that there was no such thing as a stupid question, the attendees got comfortable enough to ask her about their personal problems with manners.

"I spill things on my chin, what should I do?"

Lift your napkin, wipe your chin, and above all, protect your pants.

"I never know what to do with my hands!"

In your lap in America. When abroad, keep them where others can see them.

"What about salt and pepper?"

Never, never, divorce the salt and pepper. Pass them together at all times.

With the soup course, Smith covered the etiquette of sneezing, yawning and belching, small talk and the secret language of silverware with the main course, and as the group finished their chicken and put down their knives and forks (parallel between twelve and four o 'clock), the focus turned to the nitty gritty details of the business dinner.

And however simple and arbitrary the rules seemed to be, the attendees said they were glad to know them.

As one of last evening's attendees reflected on his way out of the seminar, "It's a lot of stuff I needed to know and would never have learned otherwise."

The event's sponsors said they organized the workshop to address some of the faults they have encountered in undergraduate comportment.

"Last year, at the Cabot Senior Dinner, I saw a few people who just didn't know how to act. One man got drunk and threw his feet up on the table," Bourneuf said. "I decided to go to OCS and see about starting this program."

Smith says her career grew from a personal love for the history of etiquette and she has seen the need for formal instruction grow in recent years as the latent result of the counter-culture take their toll.

"In the sixties, we had a big disestablishmentary movement, and that generation fought against all the norms of society. But they threw the baby out with the bathwater," Smith said. "Now the pendulum is swinging back as people realize it's nice to say please and thank you."