The Book of Business Etiquette

by Nella Braddy Henney

It is a dangerous thing for a girl to receive attentions indiscriminately from men, especially those who drift across her horizon from the great world outside. It is dangerous (is it necessary to add that it is incorrect?) for a manicurist to accept presents from the millionaire whose hands she looks after. It is unwise for any girl to accept expensive gifts from a man who is not her fiancé.

There are exceptions to this rule, as indeed to every other. At Christmas or at the time a ceremony or an anniversary employers sometimes give their secretaries or another trusted employee a beautiful gift, and it is within the bounds of propriety for the employee to accept it. Often when he has been away from the office for several weeks a man presents his secretary a gift to express his gratitude for the capable way in which she has managed affairs in his absence, and this gift the secretary is privileged to accept. Gifts are seldom presented except where the association has been a long and highly satisfactory one.

But the girl who goes to the theatre with a man about whom she knows nothing except that he has the price of the tickets is running a serious risk. She is violating one of the most rigid principles of etiquette and she is skating perilously out beyond the line marked off by common sense. Nearly every man can, and does, if he is the right sort, present credentials before asking a girl if he may call or if he may escort her to a place of amusement. There are instances in romantic stories and in real life where a man and a maid have met without the help of a third party and have entered upon a charming friendship. They are rare, rarer in fact than in fiction. It is banal to say that a girl can usually tell. But she can, and if she has any doubt (and this is true of all her relations with men) she should have no doubt. She should stop where she is.

Where men and girls work together in the same building or in buildings near one another they often go to the same restaurant for lunch. It is natural that they should sometimes sit together at the same tables. It is correct for a man to sit at a table where there are already only girls (if the girls are willing), but it is not correct for a girl to sit at a table where there are already only men (however willing the men may be). In these mixed groups each person pays for his or her own lunch. It is not even necessary for the man, or the men, as the case may be, to offer to do so, and it is a distinct breach of the rules of etiquette for a girl to allow a man to pay for her lunch under such circumstances.

The only time when it is correct for a man and a girl who are associated together in business to have lunch, with him the host and her the guest, is when the engagement is made ahead of time as for any other social affair. On such an occasion he should be as attentive as he would in any other circumstances, taking care of her wraps and placing her chair if the waiter is not at hand to do it, suggesting dishes he thinks perhaps she will like, and making himself as generally useful and agreeable as it is possible for him to be. A point about which considerable breath is wasted is whether a man should enter a restaurant with the girl following or whether he should allow her to lead the way. It makes no material difference one way or the other, but usually he permits her to go ahead and follows closely enough behind to open the doors for her and to receive whatever instructions the head waiter has to offer.

If a man should enter a restaurant and find a girl whom he knows already seated he may join her if he thinks he will be not unwelcome, but this does not make it incumbent upon him to pay for her lunch. He may offer to do it, but it is a matter that rests with the girl. If she does not care to develop his acquaintance she should not permit it, but if the two are good friends or if she feels that he is a man she would like to know, she may give him her check to settle along with his own. A girl is herself the best judge of what to do under such conditions, and if common sense does not show her the way out etiquette will not help.

Women in business sometimes bring up perplexing questions and create awkward situations. Suppose a man has asked a girl several times to a business-social lunch and she has accepted every time. It seems that she should, as a man would in the same position, make some return. If she works for a house where there is a dining room in which checks do not have to be settled at the end of every meal she may do so without the slightest difficulty, but if she is compelled to take him to a place where the check must be given to the waiter or paid at the desk before they leave, she must look out for a different way of managing things. Business luncheons are usually paid for by the firm in whose interests they are brought about, and if the girl works for an organization where there are several men employed she may ask one of them to take her friend out to lunch. Then, even if she is not present, her social duty is done. The easiest way out of such a predicament, it is superfluous to say, is never to get into it.

A girl who enters business presumably accepts the same conditions that men have to meet. She has no right to expect special favors because she is a woman. She does get a certain amount of consideration, as indeed she should, but she is very foolish and childish if she feels resentful when a busy man fails to hold open a door for her to pass through, when he rushes into his office ahead of her, or when he cuts short an interview when she has said only half of what she had on her mind.

Much is said about the man who keeps his seat on a train while a woman stands. His defense rests upon two arguments, first, that his need is greater than hers (which is not true) and, second, that she does not appreciate it even when he does give it to her (which is not true either). Unfortunately, there are as many rude women in the world—and this statement is not made carelessly—as there are rude men, and in almost half the cases where a man rises to give a woman his place the woman sits down without even a glance toward her benefactor, as if the act, which is no small sacrifice on the part of a tired man, were not worth noticing. Every act of civility or thoughtfulness should be rewarded with at least a “Thank you” and a good hearty one at that.

Old people, cripples, and invalids rarely fail to secure seats, however crowded a car may be. A man seldom offers his place to another man unless it is evident that the other, because of age, infirmity, or extreme fatigue is greatly in need of it. Well-bred girls resign their seats to old men, but if they refuse to accept, the girls do not insist. At a reunion of Confederate veterans several years ago a girl rose from her place on a street car to allow a feeble old man to sit down. He gripped the strap fiercely.