Mind your manners

As soon as I saw the PowerPoint presentation set up at the front of the room, I knew the Butler-Wilson Etiquette Boot Camp was serious business. “Outclass the Competition,” the first slide read. My palms began to sweat. I hadn’t realized classiness was a contest. The burning torch JPEG superimposed on the title slide seemed to laugh at my naivete. It soon became clear to me that contracts are made, careers are ended and promotions are handed out over business lunches and dinners. Employers aren’t paying you six figures a year for you to rip your bread with your teeth.

Dr. Alexis Andres, director of student life at Butler College, and Satomi Chudasama, a counselor for Career Services, organized the event, but we all knew that Debbie Cucinotta, our etiquette specialist for the evening, was the one in charge. Although the invitation to the boot camp had not required semiformal attire, nearly everyone was looking sharp. The students who had arrived on time were filling in the tables set up by the dining hall staff.

Debbie was already surveying the room. “The unfortunate thing is that everyone is sitting near the door,” Debbie says. “Stragglers are going to have to walk all the way across the room to get a seat. That’s going to get disruptive.”

Debbie is the founder of Global Etiquette, which, according to her website, is a “leading etiquette and protocol establishment.” She came across exactly as one who specializes in “protocol” should. To be an expert in “soft skills,” one must have a pearl necklace, a flawless chignon and an eye for anticipating awkward situations. She won’t hesitate to make an example out of you, but it’s for your own good — she’s like a soup kitchen volunteer who ladles out tough love instead of stew. Case in point: A sophomore walked in 10 minutes late wearing a tanktop and athletic shorts. Debbie said, “Whoa! Nice of you to join us.”

I noticed the napkin on top of my plate. According to the PowerPoint, I had just demonstrated skillful “napkin awareness.” As soon as I picked it up and placed it in my lap, I was inexplicably promoted to “host of the table.” If this was a competition — and it so obviously was — I had just lapped the other contenders. Debbie said: “The host is always the first to pick up his or her napkin.” Debbie chastised: “Don’t shake out your napkin! Always fold it in half and gently place it on your lap.” Debbie amended: “If you prefer, you can triangulate the napkin.”

As Debbie’s presentation continued, the act of eating, once so natural and innate, became self-reflexive. I forgot how to drink out of a glass, how to sit like a normal person, how to breathe. The pen I was using to take notes kept accidentally nicking the tablecloth, leaving blue lines that popped out like varicose veins. I had pulled a metaphorical hamstring; take me out of the race!

Everyone in the room pulled a metaphorical hammie, though, when the slide on American versus Continental place settings took up the screen. Groans abounded. Wasn’t the difference between American and Continental only pertinent when ordering breakfast at a Holiday Inn? Instead, we learned that there was a world of distinction between the two styles. For example, the American style of eating with a knife and fork required that, after cutting with your right hand, you put the knife down and switch the fork to your right hand. As Europeans have always had a laxer culture, the Continental style allowed you to keep the utensils in the same hands throughout the entire meal. The cracks in our psyches were beginning to show when a student asked, “What do we do with our left hand when the fork is in our right hand?” The crowd was getting restless. Everything that once seemed stable was no longer reliable. Debbie said: “Just do whatever is natural.” But don’t you see, Debbie, nothing is natural anymore! You took that away from us!

It may have been at this point that Debbie realized you can’t just tell Princeton students that what they’ve been doing for the last two decades has been wrong all along. Even the slightest implication that we did not know it all was enough to send us into hysterics. I would have felt sorry for burying her in our avalanche of questions, but first I needed to know how to remove a fish bone surreptitiously from my mouth.

Our “waitress” for the night had to pack Debbie a doggy bag because she was too busy fielding self-conscious questions to eat. This is the burden of having all the social keys in your hand, the downside to having the answers that a group of type-A overachievers want. You have to answer frantic questions like: “How do you stab cherry tomatoes?” “How do you wipe your mouth?” “How do you eat pasta?” All of these were asked before we even got our bread and our individual pats of butter. I could sense the calm settling, though, as everyone thought, “I know how to butter bread, at least.” How wrong we were. That was only the eye of the storm. The hurricane of social anxiety blew up as we realized, “What if there’s communal butter?” Debbie, our port in the storm, said, “Using your butter knife, take a pat from the communal butter and place it on your bread plate.”

My entire system of dining-related beliefs had been upset. I learned that the bread plate is on your left and the drinking glass is on your right. All my life, I’ve tried to commandeer both my right-hand and left-hand glass as a show of dominance, just as I always take both elbow rests at the movie theater. It was no longer a question that I would be outclassed by my competition at the dinner; we had all been outclassed.

My tablemates were equally nonplussed by the event. Trying to pile rice pilaf on the back of my fork Continental style, I bellowed, “This is so stressful!” Both Katherine Huang ’13 and Connie Wan ’14 replied, “I know!” Out of earshot, Debbie continued to lecture on how to pass salt and pepper shakers. They should be handled as a pair. Giving up on the rice, I put down my knife and fork, making sure that the fork tines faced down. I even dabbed my mouth with my napkin two times. I didn’t like to think about it, but I had no doubt that in a business world far, far away, potential employees were jumping through the very same hoops Debbie had held up for us today. And wasn’t it better to break down in the secure space of Wilcox’s private dining room than in a four-star restaurant?

In the privacy of my own kitchen, I could eat my steak with my bare hands, but, thanks to Debbie, I would never make the mistake of drinking out of a finger bowl. While useless in a college setting, the teachings of the school of proper dining and good manners might one day save me from ordering ribs at a business dinner.

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As we started dessert, our last course, Katherine noted, “This overly self-conscious atmosphere is not conducive to enjoyable eating.” I decided that Katherine’s comment was not a criticism of Debbie’s lessons but rather a pretty accurate description of dining etiquette. I finished chewing first before I opened my mouth and recited: “Debbie says, ‘We’re not here to eat. We’re here to do business.’ ”