You might think that you’re invisible because you’re looking
down at your paperwork, but we, the other meeting attendees, the people sitting
next to you and across from you, can see you. What are you doing with that now unstuck
food particle? Eating it? Wiping it on your pants? Planning to shake our hand
with that mouth-swiping finger?
Also, don’t comb your hair at meetings. Even though you’ve
reached into your bag to fetch your comb and think that by dipping your head
close to the table top that you’re now unseen just because you are not looking
at us, we, the people sitting next to you and across from you, can see you. We
can also see the lint and the extraneous hairs that are now landing on our notepads,
our computers, our clothing.
One would think that, as a society, we’d have advanced
beyond the point where reproach is necessary. We haven’t. Check out any meeting and watch at
least one attendee engage in questionable behavior. Grooming is an activity to
be done in private, or at least in a restroom, not at a conference table or a
dining table or in the middle of a cocktail party. You want to be known as the
lawyer who toured clean-tech companies in Switzerland, not as the one with the
disgusting table manners.
People get selected, or hired, for all sorts of reasons
having nothing to do with their core qualifications or their pedigree. Often
the one who makes it off the short list is the one the decider likes more. Be likable, not repulsive.
—Lori Tripoli
Interested in appropriate behavior within your law office?
Consider these posts:
