Business lunch blunders – and 10 ways to avoid them

I wholeheartedly agree with Jay’s point about treating your server well. Having worked in the service industry for years, my experience has shown that those people who are cold, rude, or abrasive to the server are the ones who ruin the lunch for the client. Businessmen/ women often forget that their servers are people too and often are just as good at their jobs as their guests are at theirs. There are many things a server can do without the table noticing that will have small annoying impacts on the service. This is not being unproffesional, it is simply treating the guest the same way they treat you. Your food might be coursed too close together, the guests may have an empty glass in front of them for a minute, you might not get offered fresh cracked pepper, etc… Remember, servers like business lunch tables as they are quick and do not require much more attention than refills. On the other hand there is nothing worse than being talked down to by someone when at the end of the meal you are working for at most an $8 tip. Servers are just as calculating as business people and most know how to ruin a business lunch, without being obvious, if the host lacks basic tact and manners.

Business lunch: order something light colored and thin—salad. Nothing red or dark, either liquid or solid, that will show upon the tablecloth or your shirt. It’s OK to cut the salad with a knife if you get one of those big palm fronds on your plate. No booze. No dessert.

Iused to work for a government agency, and had to attend many dinner meetings with the Administrator. He would go from table to table to see what everyone else (not with our group, even) was having. Yes, I cringed.

If you are taking a client out to lunch, always check ahead of time to make sure that the restaurant accepts credit cards. There’s nothing worst than having to take up a collection from your guests or running out to an ATM to get the cash for the bill.

1 of my friends actually invited me to business dinner before! Several times. Once was enough because it was really uncomfortable for me. They were there to discuss BUSINESS that had nothing to do with my career. That was too much mixing business with pleasure.

A few pages out of my business lunch blunder file…

The big boss (boss above my boss) at one job had an alarming tendency to both drink quite a bit at business lunches (lunches! not even dinners!) and push everyone around him to drink as well. Miraculously, he never lost his lunch or spilled anything on anyone, but he would usually get quite silly by the end of lunch — telling weird jokes, initiating wild (non-business-related) topic swings, gesticulating wildly, and (on one memorable occasion) balancing his plate, with his meal, on his head. I can only assume he was good enough at his job (or had enough dirty laundry on other people) that the occasional embarassment was worth keeping him on.

Don’t bring your family to business lunches. A friend’s boss regularly had his wife and kids meet him at business lunches. You can imagine the results.

While of course you should plan to do more talking than eating, refusing to order anything at a business lunch or dinner is just weird. I was once at a business dinner where the boss picking up the check did not even order a soda. Somehow it freaked out everyone at the table! Nobody knew what to do and most people ended up just picking at their food. So even if you’re not planning on eating, order a cheap salad and shuffle it around a little in the bowl, just for the sake of your colleagues’ nerves!

One last thing: If you’re at a business lunch with two people who are related, watch them carefully. Their manners can be very telling about the nature of the business. I can’t count how many father-son teams I’ve seen where the father had impeccable manners and the son had none at all (and in almost all cases, the father was the real force in the business and the son clearly couldn’t have got a job anywhere else but with Dad).

Don’t choose a restaurant with high ceilings and cement floors. It’s too noisy and can interfere with your conversations. These are in vogue right now, so choose wisely…

David Blackledge’s comments are absolutely spot on (pun intended). A business lunch is not about the food and, indeed, sauce will end up on your tie or, in my unfortunate case, a silk blouse.

If you are paying for a business lunch, never hand over your credit card without first reviewing the check for accuracy. Too many times I have seen people trying to show off by not reviewing the bill. Reviewing the check shows diligence and concern for money.

If people don’t have even the most basic skills including “people skills”, then they will naturally weed themselves out. It’s called survival of the fittest. I have no sympathy for people who lack basic manners or tact. It only leaves room for the rest of us who do.

A few members of our marketing team went to lunch, with the director picking up the tab. While everyone ordered a $8 burger or $7 salad, my intern ordered the $13.95 shrimp special and a beer. When his meal arrived, he complained loudly how few shrimp there were.

Since when is an intern in a position to attend a client lunch? If that’s really the case then it’s up to the account/client lead to set expectations ahead of time. The intern is there to listen and learn, not to be ordering alcohol, issuing social invitations or anything of the like. If anything they should come prepared with a set of relevant questions to ask, not offering opinions, providing counsel.

I would have immediately fired the intern for such ill-advised behavior. The dot-com wild days are long over kids.

You’ve got to be kidding? The solution “Cringing” came up with is to post a list of suggestions on the wall and ’suggest’ everyone reads it?

Annie, your reply/list was good and you answered the question. But
Cringing can’t possibly think this is going to solve the problem.

Most people would think an intern (probably early 20’s) knows how to act. Obviously not. They have never been told by anyone (parent, teachers, employer… even part time jobs in high school have rules for professional behavior).

That said, it is now a problem for Cringing to deal with. The problem is identified; now deal with it directly!

When I was as a kid (starting when I was about 8 years old), my dad was a grey suit/white shirt type. There were lots of events that included families. Everything from picnics in the city park to dinners wearing suits. I always knew in advance the expected dress code and behavior. I had an option… attend and obey the rules or stay home with a PB&J sandwich. I always went because the food was great and I usually had a good time. Little did I know how much I was learning that I could use in my professional life years later.

Cringing, lay out the expectations. If they don’t want to follow them, then it is time they move on to another company. They will end up at home with a PB&J.

One of the most embarassing instances of not knowing your client was when I was invited out for after-work drinks by a vendor that I’d been meeting with for two days. The location they suggested is more or less a high end “gentleman’s club”.

There was one small detail that they failed to notice – I’m gay and have a couple of photo’s of my partner posted in plain sight in my office where we’d been for the last 2 days.

I toyed with the idea of dropping that bomb on them as we were walking into the club but felt that as they were a great (if somewhat non-observant) group, that I would discretely mention this to the lead consultant who quickly changed the reservations to a bar/restaurant of my choice and graciously extended an invitation to my partner.

Now THAT’s a great recovery!

I don’t even have a tip on how to handle this — except to never go back to the restaurant again — but:

I was talking a business contact to dinner. He suggested a hotel restaurant where they had a nice buffet (he was staying at that hotel).

Well, it was a beautiful buffet, very artfully laid out. Unfortunately, the man had a serious vision impairment, and had difficulty making contact with the food.

Several times, I tactfully offered to help, but he refused. I didn’t know this person very well, so I just shut up. He continued flailing at all the food displays with the serving utensils, knocking food in all directions. By the time we had both filled our plates, the beautiful buffet looked like it had been run over by a truck — actually, several trucks.

The hotel staff was glaring daggers at us. The other person couldn’t see them, and I spent the rest of the meal just staring at my plate, grateful that I was staying at a different hotel and would never have to face these people again.

what those interns lack is not just business experience. they lack the most basic manners expected of anyone who no longer wears diapers. the human resources department shouldn’t have let them in the door in the first place. i suspect the reaon they were is that they’re well connected.

Whenever I have a business lunch or dinner, I have a small meal BEFORE going. That way, I won’t feel compelled to eat anything if it’s more important for me to talk rather than eat, and since it’s a small meal, I can also eat something if it looks better.

Annie;
I was also looking for a list of “general” manners when dining with others, whether it be for business or pleasure. I have a fourteen year old I’m trying to teach table manners to and it’s like pulling teeth. My pet peeve is chewing with the mouth open and smacking of the lips. Maybe if he reads a list of no no’s from Annie I might gain some ground here because, you know, Dad’s a PIA. Help.

Back in the old days, when the “Big Eight” accounting firms still existed, I quickly learned that having lunch during an job interview was NOT about eating. For the most part I was “double teamed”, with the lunch consisting of myself and two interviewers. There was be a constant flow of questions as they alternated eating and grilling me. There were some foods I quickly learned to avoid. NEVER order something with a sauce (especially a tomato based sauce)– it will invariably wind up on your tie. DON’T eat the bread (especially crusty French bread)– your portion of the table will wind up covered in crumbs. Instead, order something light, take small bites, and DON’T try to finish it.

Cringing in Cleveland should have done one more thing after apologizing to the client for the interns behavior. That would of course have been to end the intern’s internship unless it would have been politically sticky (ie: the intern was the child of a superior to cringing in the organization or the child of a very big client who may retaliate by taking their account away from the frim). If those interns were employees, I’m sure after those lunches, dessert would have been pink slips.

Annie needs to remember that the interns don’t have the business experience that she does. They are interning to learn how business works.

She needs to brief them ahead of client meetings instead of hoping that they will know what to do.

She sees the problem, but she needs to act on it!

Annie here: Good points, but I’m not “Cringing in Cleveland.” Apparently, “C in C” is hoping that posting these lunch rules on the wall and asking everyone (including interns!) to read them, “C” won’t have to give the same pre-lunch briefing over and over again.