The Business Lunch
Business lunches are dangerous places to be. Most corporations know that the business lunch is no place to send a novice. Only hardened veterans of the rubber chicken circuit have what it takes to survive this culinary minefield.
Over the years, people who have climbed mountains, survived avalanches and paddled through piranha-infested waters have been reduced to quivering heaps of gelatin in the face of a business lunch. It is one thing to stare down a raging grizzly, but it is quite another to stand up and deliver a humorous speech at a business luncheon: the grizzly is dangerous, but the luncheon is suicidal.
This is because the business lunch has little to do with business and nothing to do with lunch, but everything to do with power. You may have invented a cure for cancer or repaired the hole in the ozone, but stand up to give your talk with a splotch of strawberry and rhubarb pie of your suit, and you are just so much carrion floating in the shark-infested waters of the corporate oceans.
As with all encounters with dangerous wildlife, the best way to survive a business lunch is to make no sudden moves, no loud noises, and no eye contact - business people consider staring a hostile gesture. Make an abrupt reach for a wine glass that results in a spill, or a loud, unexpected guffaw when nobody else is laughing, and you will find yourself slipping into oblivion while the other more successful and better adapted predators lick their chops, withdraw their claws, and order Cafe Latte.
The five most common mistakes made by neophyte business luncheon attendees are as follows:
• Eating with their mouth open - and that includes especially talking while eating, unless you are the CEO in which case talking and eating at the same time are considered evidence of prowess.
• Using the wrong utensils. Use the soupspoon to stir your coffee, and you may return to work to find your desk moved to the mailroom.
• Spilling anything. A single drop of tomato sauce on a white tablecloth can start the sharks circling.
• Speaking too much or too little. Only people with telepathic powers can know how much polite conversation is just right.
• Telling inappropriate jokes - and then being the only one who laughs.
• Having too much to drink. And if you think the fact that you are eating bread in an effort to soak up the alcohol won't be noticed, you're wrong. The only people who can get away with drinking too much at a business lunch are authors, artists and journalists, but then everybody knows they are not really business people anyway.
The pitfalls are everywhere, so those unfamiliar with the business lunch must be constantly on guard. When the nice man to your left leans over and suggests helpfully that you should try the Cajun chicken, is he really just being "helpful" or is he trying to remove you from the corporate food-chain by getting you to eat a dish that will cause you to break into a sauna-like sweat? And when that kindly woman to your right asks you if you would like red or white wine with your calamari, is she really giving you a choice, or is she trying to point out to the others that you have no idea if calamari is considered meat or fish, and selecting either wine will be a serious faux pas - a term, by the way, used by Roman gladiators to indicate someone who was about to be cast to the lions.
The only secure way to successfully navigate a business lunch is to eat and drink nothing, speak only when spoken to, and laugh (softly) only when the highest-ranking predator laughs. If you look really carefully at the other people at the table, you'll see that's exactly what they are doing, except, of course, for those uncouth few who were obviously invited by mistake, and who will never see the light of another business lunch again.
Bon appetit!
Over the years, people who have climbed mountains, survived avalanches and paddled through piranha-infested waters have been reduced to quivering heaps of gelatin in the face of a business lunch. It is one thing to stare down a raging grizzly, but it is quite another to stand up and deliver a humorous speech at a business luncheon: the grizzly is dangerous, but the luncheon is suicidal.
This is because the business lunch has little to do with business and nothing to do with lunch, but everything to do with power. You may have invented a cure for cancer or repaired the hole in the ozone, but stand up to give your talk with a splotch of strawberry and rhubarb pie of your suit, and you are just so much carrion floating in the shark-infested waters of the corporate oceans.
As with all encounters with dangerous wildlife, the best way to survive a business lunch is to make no sudden moves, no loud noises, and no eye contact - business people consider staring a hostile gesture. Make an abrupt reach for a wine glass that results in a spill, or a loud, unexpected guffaw when nobody else is laughing, and you will find yourself slipping into oblivion while the other more successful and better adapted predators lick their chops, withdraw their claws, and order Cafe Latte.
The five most common mistakes made by neophyte business luncheon attendees are as follows:
• Eating with their mouth open - and that includes especially talking while eating, unless you are the CEO in which case talking and eating at the same time are considered evidence of prowess.
• Using the wrong utensils. Use the soupspoon to stir your coffee, and you may return to work to find your desk moved to the mailroom.
• Spilling anything. A single drop of tomato sauce on a white tablecloth can start the sharks circling.
• Speaking too much or too little. Only people with telepathic powers can know how much polite conversation is just right.
• Telling inappropriate jokes - and then being the only one who laughs.
• Having too much to drink. And if you think the fact that you are eating bread in an effort to soak up the alcohol won't be noticed, you're wrong. The only people who can get away with drinking too much at a business lunch are authors, artists and journalists, but then everybody knows they are not really business people anyway.
The pitfalls are everywhere, so those unfamiliar with the business lunch must be constantly on guard. When the nice man to your left leans over and suggests helpfully that you should try the Cajun chicken, is he really just being "helpful" or is he trying to remove you from the corporate food-chain by getting you to eat a dish that will cause you to break into a sauna-like sweat? And when that kindly woman to your right asks you if you would like red or white wine with your calamari, is she really giving you a choice, or is she trying to point out to the others that you have no idea if calamari is considered meat or fish, and selecting either wine will be a serious faux pas - a term, by the way, used by Roman gladiators to indicate someone who was about to be cast to the lions.
The only secure way to successfully navigate a business lunch is to eat and drink nothing, speak only when spoken to, and laugh (softly) only when the highest-ranking predator laughs. If you look really carefully at the other people at the table, you'll see that's exactly what they are doing, except, of course, for those uncouth few who were obviously invited by mistake, and who will never see the light of another business lunch again.
Bon appetit!
posted by Millie Beagle at 10:31 am
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