By Stephanie MacLellan
“The guest does not ever pick up their napkin, or their utensils, until the host does. If something’s spilled or dropped, leave it on the floor and quietly ask the waiter for another one. And whenever you can, order easy-to-eat food rather than having a trauma with messy food.”
These, according to business etiquette consultant Gloria Starr, are the most important things to remember when you’re having a lunch or dinner meeting with a client.
What’s less important is spending as much money as possible on the meal.
“You don’t necessarily need to order the most expensive item on the menu,” she says.
This might be news for some of the federal bureaucrats who have been using public money to pay for their extravagant dining habits.
Widely published Access to Information findings have revealed how Charles Boyer, an aide to Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, racked up massive tabs at swanky restaurants like Le Pied de Cochon in Gatineau, while former privacy commissioner George Radwanski had a $444 lunch bill at Gatineau’s Le Panache.
Many defend this spending by arguing that this is just the cost of doing business. After all, the lunch meeting can be the perfect opportunity to make a deal while getting to know a client informally, and talking business over dinner can show that you’re putting in the extra effort to see them outside of office hours. And if you’re asking your clients to trust you with a big contract, you want to let them know they’re important enough to warrant a fine cut of steak and a crème brulée.
But Anne Sowden, the president of Here’s Looking at You Image Consulting, can’t help but chuckle at the several-hundred-dollar meals that have been making the news.
“Most people are extremely careful about not having unnecessary meetings, or spending money unnecessarily,” she says. “I’ve seen it perhaps in the last year or so. It always happens when the economy slows down.”
Sowden says the days of “three-martini lunches” went out with the ’90s, and being seen in the most exclusive restaurant is less important than finding one where your client will feel comfortable eating — especially as more people have diet restrictions. One growing trend, Starr says, is to host clients for a nice dinner at your home.
Not even the fanciest restaurant or the most exorbitant meal will make the right impression if the service is poor or the host bites his nails at the table, according to Michelle Horne, an etiquette consultant with Ottawa’s Putting It Together.
“Those things matter because people focus on niceties and decorum,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be a really expensive, really high-end restaurant.”
With most businesses spending less on posh luncheons than they used to, and table manners saying more about a person than the size of the dinner bill, there’s really no reason for bureaucrats to spend so much public money doing business over a sumptuous meal.
Skip the caviar. Just chew with your mouth closed.