Dining with Confidence

As I looked around the dining hall last night, I saw innumerable instances of horrifying dining infractions. Students were stabbing at their chicken with knives positioned in death grips a la caveman-style, noisily slurping down the last tricky-to-reach bits of the soup du jour, and engaging in riveting burping contests with each other.

Me? I was hardly the vision of proper eating technique either. I often talk with my mouth full and have even been known to - gasp - occasionally rest my elbows on the table. While no one really bats an eye at this behavior within the comforting confines of Dewick and Carmichael, exhibiting it in a professional environment will probably not go over too well. At this point, many of us seniors are going on job/internship interviews. It is not uncommon for an employer to take a prospective employee out to lunch, either to specifically talk business, or just to get a better feel for the person. It may sound melodramatic, but how you conduct yourself in a dining environment could play a critical role in whether or not you make a favorable impression with your host (i.e., get a job).

Perhaps the kind people of Career Services figured out this deep, dark secret of mine and feared that potential employment prospects could be ruined by my less-than-ladylike dining skills. With that in mind, they eagerly sent me off to the Dining With Confidence luncheon, held in the Chase Center on Friday, February 26. Cosponsored by Career Services, the Africana Center, the Alumni Association and Tufts Catering, this event taught attendees dining etiquette and networking advice over a delicious four course meal (butternut squash soup...mmm).

The event was run by Jean Papalia, the Director of Career Services, and also a certified Business Protocol Consultant. She started off the afternoon by presenting us with a true-or-false quiz about- what else - dining etiquette. Out of twenty questions, I got exactly two correct (and those two were trick questions, meaning that either answer could be right). Apparently, my dining predicament was far more dire than I had initially thought. Was I beyond repair?

Over the next two hours, Jean took us through all the various rules for dining, demonstrated clearly and humorously through slide shows and personal anecdotes. We learned helpful hints like:

• If you are the host, be prepared to pay for everything
• Do not begin eating until the host has
• Only cut one piece of meat at a time
• Break a piece off of your bread, butter it, and then eat it (buttering the whole slice at one time is a big no no...that was an epiphany for me)
• When eating soup, scoop away from you, and then eat it from the side of the spoon (without making any audible noises!)
• Try to keep pace with your fellow diners; if everyone else is done, you are "done" too (even if you haven't finished everything - it's not about the food!)
• When someone proposes a toast to you, you must always return the favor
  

Listening to Jean was very enlightening, and she brought up a lot of good points that I'd never thought of before. She also acknowledged that, although some "rules" have been on the books for a while now, it is up to us to decide whether to follow them, bend them, or break them. For instance, one traditional dining etiquette rule states that, whenever a lady gets up from or comes back to the table, all the men dining with her should stand up. In my own opinion, however, that seems a bit antiquated (and besides, all that getting up and down is just asking for something to be knocked over or spilled). In this case, I would kindly choose to break the rules, and assure my male dining companions that I was perfectly capable of rising from the table on my own.

It was also interesting to listen to my table mates talk about their own experiences (and faux pas) with dining etiquette. One student, who comes from Ghana, spoke to us about how, in her culture, it is considered highly disrespectful to not finish everything on your plate, especially in the presence of older people. So, whereas we are taught in America to keep pace with our peers and stop eating when they do, some cultures believe that finishing everything is a sign of appreciation and politeness (no matter how full you may already be).

By the end of the two hour event, as I was (quietly) sipping my coffee (by the way, Jean told us that it is not mandatory to stick your pinky finger out while doing so), I was feeling way more confident about my dining abilities than when I had first sat down. I was a lady of style and substance now! I could nibble, toast and small talk with the best of 'em! Certainly I will make a fabulous impression with any potential employers that may come my way (they'll show up...one of these days). And thennn I realized that those darn elbows of mine were still resting firmly on the table. Ah well...baby steps.

Watch the Career Services eNews and Google Calendar for future Dining with Confidence programs!