Ruling Class. Someone's
got to teach the software savvy not to lick the knife. Robert
Sulivan discovers etiquette for the E-mail age.
It's not that the entire generation of Silicon Valley millionaires
is manner-free. It's not that everybody who ever designed an E-mail
software program, expanded his company quickly, went public, and
then sold that company to Microsoft doesn't know the difference
between a dessert fork and a salad fork. It's not that every woman
who ever made her first million designing Java applications doesn't
know how to hold a cup of coffee when dining out with Japanese
clients. To say that would be like saying that every hypertext
program is the same or that all Web browsers are created equal.
Still it is fair to say that most young computer-industry titans
know a lot more about HTML protocol than formal dining protocol.
That's where Sue Fox
comes in. Sue Fox runs Etiquette Survival, an etiquette company
she founded four years ago in Los Gatos, California. Fox is tall,
with blonde hair and blue eyes, and to an East Coaster, anyway,
seems very Californian and sunny.
The point is that she's
no Emily Post. She's more of a Microsoftened Martha Stewart who
works tirelessly to bring manners to Silicon Valley. "I think
it all started in the seventies," she recalled. "There
was Apple, with Steve Jobs wearing jeans and all. And then everybody
did it." Now an entire generation of software-savvy people
in their 20s and 30s has grown up thinking that formal means you
use metal utensils instead of plastic with your Mexican food.
"We had one who licked his knife," Fox said politely.
The other day, in between training a few more instructors and
polishing off her upcoming book, Etiquette for Dummies, she was
very courteously stressing that her courses are, above all, fun!
"We try to take all the stuffiness out of etiquette,"
she said. She describes her typical client as wealthy, mid 30s,
an employee of a computer or computer-related company. This is
the person who would like to buy a $300 bottle of wine but doesn't
know which one. She helps demystify the rules of the table and
social contact in general. Shemakes European knife handling as
easy as downloading a file.
And where are the etiquette trouble spots? According to Fox, handshakes
are perhaps the number-one problem. "Not a limp fish but
not a bone crusher," Fox says several times on an average
day. "Lets see," she continued, running down a quick
list of common infractions. "OK, do you know how they serve
romaine lettuce with the whole leaf in restaurants? Well, one
woman, she put the whole leaf in her mouth…Double dipping
in an olive oil plate is common. People looking at watches…
And I would say, not listening is a big one. Also, family-style
dining is difficult for some people. We tried a couple of family-style-dining
classes, and it was very challenging. With family-style dining
you're supposed to take a little of one or two desserts, for example,
and then pass it around. Well, two people took a whole dessert.
One person took a big sorbet. It was incredible."
Scott Murphy, 35, a
technical-support engineer, took one of Fox's courses "in
case of one of those emergencies when you have to go out to a
formal dinner. A lot of these guys, software-engineer types, they're
making 70 to 80 grand and they're just getting out of college."
That you were allowed to cut your lettuce was news to Murphy,
and liberating news at that. Also, he found the placement of utensils
to be fascinating. "While you're eating you're supposed to
put them at the top of your plate," he said in wonder.
Before Fox got into the etiquette business, while working for
Apple Computer, she made what she regards as her greatest single
faux pas. It was at a large dinner table, which, it should be
noted was not formally set, and she accidentally used the bread
plate intended for the gentleman seated next to her. She doesn't
wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking about this incident
or anything, but she remembers: "It stayed with me."
After she left Apple, she started an etiquette course for children,
but she noticed that the adults were asking a lot of questions.
The philosophy Fox teaches now is a combination of Catholic school
training and a passion for Buddhism, particularly the etiquette-related
Buddhist concept of mindfulness. "Manners are about pacing
your life, about respecting others, and self-respect. It's about
little kindnesses.
In fact, Fox believes that manners are on their way back, in both
Silicon Valley and possibly the country. Partly this is because
computer companies are more competitive now and need that extra
polish to attract clients, and partly because kids with money
are getting more mature and want to stay in for dinner parties
instead of going out for pizza. "I don't know what it is,"
she says. "You've seen the movie Titanic. You've seen The
Age of Innocence. I think the sixties with the hippies and then
the eighties, with the me-me-me-will, I think now there is this
renaissance."
She is optimistic, that is, except when it comes to the cell phone;
the cell phone is, to her, a step back toward the Dark Ages. "We've
gotten out of control with them," she says. "You shouldn't
even bring it to a restaurant. We don't realize how rude they
are. Unless it's an emergency. Or unless you have a baby-sitter."
She adds, I don't know if we can ever go back."
