Manners matter
AT FIU, STUDENTS GET VALUABLE LESSON ON
MAKING AN IMPRESSION IN BUSINESS

BY NICHOLAS SPANGLER, Tue, Oct. 15, 2002

Chew with your mouth closed. Speak in a pleasing tone, loudly enough to be heard at your table but not the next; avoid politics as a topic of conversation. Use your napkin, not your sleeve or the back of your hand, to blot crumbs away from your mouth should the need arise.

The rules of table etiquette are, perhaps, intuitive. But there are finer and more abstruse points -- and getting that first job might just count on knowing which fork to use for the shrimp.

And for that, Florida International University brought in the expert.

''This is not finishing school stuff; this is the real world,'' etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore said to the group of almost 100 FIU students gathered in the Graham Center Ballroom Monday night. ``These days meals are part of the interview for some jobs, and certainly they're an important feature of the business world. I believe that I can help save my students some embarrassment and help their self-confidence. Self-confidence can get you hired; and the job pays your bills.''

SLURPING SOUP
The students paid $15 a head to attend the annual Business Etiquette Dinner. In addition to their clear broth, followed by Caesar salad, sorbet, chicken and rice, they also learned the finer points of slurping their soup:

One should hold the stem of the spoon between thumb and forefinger, at a right angle to the forearm. Lift the spoon in an outward arc away from the bowl and up to the mouth, preserving the right angle. Unless, of course, one is eating a chunky soup or stew, in which case the spoon should approach the mouth point first.

Etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore, right, sits with Florida International University student Arla Christian at the Graham Center Ballroom. ANGELA GAUL / For the Herald

''I take my job very seriously,'' said Whitmore, the director of The Protocol School of Palm Beach.
Dinner began shortly after 6. Whitmore stood in the middle of the room as the students chatted quietly at the tables around her, the young men in jacket and tie and the women in skirts and pant-suits. ''You may dine in the American style, in the Continental style, or the barbarian style, though I'm sure no one in this room tonight will choose that option,'' said Whitmore. There was laughter when she asked her audience if it were bad to sop the juices on one's plate with bread. ''No, I don't think so,'' said one budding etiquette expert, and she was right.

'THE NECESSARY'
And there was laughter when Whitmore sketched the protocol associated with what she termed ''the necessary,'' what those of us more course might term the bathroom or the toilet. But there was silence when she ran through, in quick succession, rules for passing salt and pepper (both at once, as if they were a married couple), unfolding the napkin (only partially, with the fold facing one's lap) and eating croutons (first spear a leaf of lettuce, then use it as an anchor).

''A lot of what she's talking about I already knew,'' said Patty Self shortly after the soup course. ``My mother taught me pretty well. But some of the little things she's talking about. . . there's just so much to remember.''

Inspiration for the banquet came six years ago out of a conversation Olga Magnusen, FIU's director of career services, had with a recruiter at a job fair. ''He told me he'd just interviewed three candidates, loved them all, but he made up his mind at dinner,'' Magnusen said. ``He hired the one with manners.''

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Manners matter AT FIU, STUDENTS GET VALUABLE LESSON ON MAKING AN IMPRESSION IN BUSINESS

Manners matter
AT FIU, STUDENTS GET VALUABLE LESSON ON
MAKING AN IMPRESSION IN BUSINESS