Corporate Ettiquette
Yesterday I participated in a Corporate Ettiquette Workshop held at a local hotel organized by my company.
I found most of it very useful, especially how to eat a 4 course meal. Being from a country where we eat our rice and curry with our fingers, I’ve always got confused with all the knives, spoons and folks. Now those of you who are from other countries, please don’t look shocked, even eating with the fingers is an art. I’ve seen people who are not used to it eating with their fingers with a disastrous results!
We even had a hour on wines and how to choose them and tasting of course :0) (they unfortunately didn’t give enough to get drunk ;0) )
What is good manners anyway? I guess it’s the accepted norms of doing things… It’s good to know the proper ettiquette when at formal business occations, but overall I believe if you’re considerate about others and do things most of the manners would come naturally anyway.
Something our presenter said got me thinking… She was talking about how we’re always acting, especially in unfamiliar surroundings and how good manners is simply getting used to acting in a role. We do ‘act’ different roles around different people don’t we? In my case I act professional, serious and business-like at work, with close friends I just ‘let go’ and do the craziest, wildest things :0) I behave myself a bit more around other and am the ‘baby’ at home… Hmmmm… so which is the real me? Is this acting or simply just different parts of me? (I prefer to think it’s the latter)
I found most of it very useful, especially how to eat a 4 course meal. Being from a country where we eat our rice and curry with our fingers, I’ve always got confused with all the knives, spoons and folks. Now those of you who are from other countries, please don’t look shocked, even eating with the fingers is an art. I’ve seen people who are not used to it eating with their fingers with a disastrous results!
We even had a hour on wines and how to choose them and tasting of course :0) (they unfortunately didn’t give enough to get drunk ;0) )
What is good manners anyway? I guess it’s the accepted norms of doing things… It’s good to know the proper ettiquette when at formal business occations, but overall I believe if you’re considerate about others and do things most of the manners would come naturally anyway.
Something our presenter said got me thinking… She was talking about how we’re always acting, especially in unfamiliar surroundings and how good manners is simply getting used to acting in a role. We do ‘act’ different roles around different people don’t we? In my case I act professional, serious and business-like at work, with close friends I just ‘let go’ and do the craziest, wildest things :0) I behave myself a bit more around other and am the ‘baby’ at home… Hmmmm… so which is the real me? Is this acting or simply just different parts of me? (I prefer to think it’s the latter)
5 Comments:
It is great to have formal sessions such as these - it sure helps to avoid awkward mistakes!
And I agree - they are different parts of the same person, both real, but some appopriate to some situations, and some to others.
I agree too... there are many facets that make up who we are... I can't imagine being the same, all the time...
the English use their cutlery differently than Americans do... I've gotten used to the British way!
Yeah being a person in a country where we eat with fingers, we feel disgusted when we see people making a mess out of it if they do not know the proper method.
Another point is, it is eported that our countries have the lowest rates of injuries to alimentary tract due to food, Eg: by fish bones, etc, as they can feel what they put into mouth.
Found you by way of Granny. Hope you don't mind me stopping by. Well I remember my mom teaching me how to use cutlery. I always wondered what that was about. I had a hard time learning. I'm from Trinidad and my father and his family are Indian. We used to eat the curry with roti or rice with our hands but apparently that is not acceptable here. To your question - I think it's a little of both.
I love your website. It has a lot of great pictures and is very informative.
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