Etiquette Makes A Big Comeback Bad Manners Just Aren’t Tolerated Anymore

Etiquette expert Dorothea Johnson tells the story of the businessman who came to her for help after losing out on a plum assignment.

At a lunch meeting with a senior executive in the company, he sat down and immediately started eating the salad in front of him. He looked up to see his boss, who hadn’t picked up his fork yet, staring at him.

“I knew right then they weren’t going to send me out,” he said.

If only he had taken a dining tutorial offered by Johnson’s Protocol School of Washington before his lunch, he would have known to wait until his host started eating.

In this era of take-out food and dress-down Fridays, etiquette is making a surprising comeback. There is a growing sense that bad manners are strong evidence of - or perhaps the first step toward - societal breakdown. Last year, a U.S. News & World Report/Bozell survey found that 78 percent of Americans feel that incivility has worsened in the last 10 years. Most of the people surveyed believed incivility has contributed to violence, divided national community and eroded values.

Bookstore shelves are filled with best sellers on modern problems such as multicultural faux pas, gay etiquette and e-mail manners (not to mention more traditional volumes, such as this year’s 75th anniversary edition of “Emily Post’s Etiquette” and an endless number of Miss Manners books).

Business has never been brisker for etiquette classes. Companies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for seminars and workshops with names such as “Business Basics for Professional Polish” and “Customs and Protocol for Doing Business in the Global Marketplace.”

Colleges and universities have jumped on the bandwagon to give their graduates a competitive edge in the job market. The University of Virginia offers Corporate Etiquette Dinners to seniors who want to learn the ins and outs of power dining.

Joanne Mahanes, the career counselor who organized the dinners, explains: “Recruiters have not offered jobs to candidates who salt their food before tasting (it shows a tendency toward hasty decision making), or who order filet mignon. (They think such a person would go wild on an expense account.)”

But why now, as the 20th century winds down? Why does it suddenly matter again to so many people that we don’t know how to hold a wine glass, aren’t sure when to send handwritten thank you notes and need someone to tell us what gift would be appropriate for the host or hostess at a dinner party?

(At a seated dinner, hold a white wine glass by the stem and a red wine glass by the bottom of the bowl. A handwritten thank you note is always proper. Don’t bring cut flowers because the host will have to stop preparing dinner or greeting guests to find a vase. A bottle of wine or a plant are possible alternatives.)

No one is quite sure why good manners are relevant again but here are some contributing factors.

We may know the right fork to use but still be unsure about the etiquette of modern technology. For that we are buying books like “Miss Manners’ Basic Training: Communication,” published this year by Crown. The rules range from: Don’t write e-mail in capitals (it’s the equivalent of shouting), to Don’t pull your pager out and check it during religious services. (This latter is from “Pager Etiquette: Teenage Do’s and Don’ts,” a news release put out by Motorola.)

Today’s parents are realizing that while good manners will help their children get along in life, they aren’t the ones to teach them.

Even if parents feel competent to teach manners, they may not have time - not with single-parent households or both parents working. If family mealtimes are a thing of the past, when are children going to learn not to butter all their bread at once or, more important, how to hold polite dinner-table conversation?

Mary Mitchell, who writes the syndicated column “Ms. Demeanor,” cites three studies, by Harvard, the Stanford Research Institute and the Carnegie Foundation, that suggest success in a job depends 85 percent on “people skills” and only 15 percent on technical knowledge and skills. It’s no wonder that companies, hungry for some competitive edge, have started in-house training programs for their executives or are hiring etiquette consultants. Business people learn such basics as the proper way to shake hands, how to make introductions and where to put one’s briefcase or handbag.

(Shake “web-to-web” and realize that it’s the one acceptable physical contact between sexes in a business situation. When making introductions, mention the most important person’s name first. When visiting someone else’s office, put your briefcase or purse on the floor beside you, not on a table or desk.)

Top corporations hire Mary Crane, director of training for Jaffe Associates, to teach “client development skills,” not manners, which could include anything from how to place a napkin in your lap to how to present a business card to - or accept one from - a Japanese businessman.

One more reason for a renewed interest in etiquette that no one mentions much is a sort of creeping formalism. Perhaps as the millennium approaches we secretly yearn to return to a more civil age, a time with more decorum and order. How else to explain why Jane Austen adaptations have done as well at the box office lately as the newest Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick. Or the gilded finishes and velvets in furniture showrooms.

The important thing to remember, though, is that good manners are more than a code of behavior. They can make life easier.

“It’s not about formality,” says Peggy Post, author of the 75th anniversary edition of “Emily Post’s Etiquette.” “It’s not haves and have nots, it’s not just formal customs. It’s a methodology by which we can all get along with each other.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BREAKING THE RULES The Top 10 Etiquette Mistakes in Dining 1: Speaking with food in your mouth. 2: Holding the knife like a dagger or the fork like a cello and putting cutlery, once used, back on the table. 3: Putting purses, keys, gloves, etc., on the table. 4: Finishing your meal before or after everyone else. 5: Flapping the napkin to open it and putting it on the table before the meal has ended. 6: Slouching, squirming or tilting your chair. 7: Picking or poking at your teeth. 8: Leaving lipstick smears. 9: Smoking - wait until the meal is over (and, please, do not use your plate as an ashtray) 10: Buttering all the bread at once - tear off each piece and butter it before you eat it.

From “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Etiquette,” by Mary Mitchell (Alpha Books).