It's not every professional development event that can get hard-working librarians to forgo their quiet evening at home and brave a rainy Thursday night in November, but this one did. Over a hundred SLA and CASLIS members, and a few of their friends, heeded the call of an evening out to learn some of the finer points of business dining etiquette from In Good Company, a Winnipeg-based company (www.etiquetteladies.com). Its hard to know just what the great turnout for this event says about Toronto librarians. Does it mean we all recognize the need to be well-rounded in our professional lives, and that we jump at the chance to fill in some of those blanks that rarely get addressed in the normal run of PD events? Or does it mean we are the types who usually wind up with egg, literally, on our faces? As a student, I know the chance to attend a PD event for just $5.00 was an exceptional offer, especially as it included a full meal with wine. The evening started with announcements from SLA-Toronto Vice-President Kolette Taber and CASLIS-Toronto President Tracey Palmer, who also introduced the evening's sponsor Standard and Poor's. As we started on our soup and made our way into the salad our presenter Karen Mallett began to acquaint us with some of those details of dining etiquette that can make the difference between self-consciousness and self-confidence, such as exactly how to place the napkin in one's lap, and how to use it once its there. We also learned not to cut salad like a cellist, how to eat dinner rolls, and why the comestication of soup is accomplished "out to sea and back to shore." Though a few of these admonishments were venerable enough even to have reached the wet ears of the students in the audience, Karen was also able to point out the practical purposes underlying many business dining etiquette guidelines, and that not only made them more memorable and useful, but also gave us a feeling for when they might be abrogated with impunity. Now, as your 'journalist' I am aware that I have to live up to the standards of the trade as best I can, and for that reason I will have to refuse to divulge the names of the (relatively) innocent should I be called to account. Nevertheless, it is my duty to inform you that there was more than one, shall we say, incident at our table that night. As the bread arrived one diner, who shall remain nameless, managed to spill a great avalanche of ice cubes (but strangely no water) over her plate. Then later on three rubes were seen clinking their wine glasses in a tradition, we learned, reminiscent of murderous medieval court intrigue. Not to be outdone, another hapless tyro was narrowly rescued from the very brink of social annihilation by the combined efforts of the more experienced diners, who calmly but decisively made it clear that the butter knife must be "blade out" when resting on the side plate between courses. During the main course we were regaled with a few of Karen's woollier stories of etiquette misadventures, including vignettes and injunctions from the ripe fields of "business casual" attire, office manners, and polite conversation. Over coffee Karen fielded questions from the diners, and then a draw was made for a year's subscription to Standard and Poor's new business and financial information product Advantage. Helen Katz was the lucky winner. Then Tracy Palmer thanked our speaker, and Sandra Craig of CASLIS concluded the evening by thanking everyone for coming. She presented Karen with a token of appreciation, and finally, as usual, we were politely reminded to return our plastic name badges as we left. It was a charming event with some real value for those of us who have suffered from an under-exposure to linen napkins. I suspect too that for those who already had acquired the art of dining without disaster it may have been a good refresher, and seeing the rest of us learning the basics should have been good entertainment in itself. |
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