Office Etiquette

Guides to corporate conduct

Young employees wearing Walkmans in the office corridors. Colleagues asking your age, salary or even sexual preference. Drugs at the company picnic. What ever happened to manners in the executive suite? How does a person handle the new situations? Amid the social and economic tumult of the past 20 years, some of the signposts of business civility have been twisted around and others uprooted entirely. It is not surprising that many business people are impolite or confused, or both.

But help is on the way. Authors George Mazzei, 42, and Letitia Baldrige, 56, are stepping into the breach of good taste with two books that offer advice on everything from how to make a strategic retreat after a sexual advance to how to handle hard rock and soft drugs at the office Christmas party.

Baldrige, a syndicated columnist ("Mind Your Manners") who brought efficiency and a touch of white-gloved feminism to her 1978 revision of The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette, is preparing a new office primer that will be published next year. Starting late this summer, her New York City public relations firm will be conducting seminars in politesse for corporate executives. Says she: "Some of the worst-mannered people are in the high economic class. It really has nothing to do with money."

Mazzei, a former managing editor of Gentlemen's Quarterly, concurs: "Many people under 35 do not know how to behave in the business world." His answer to that problem is The New Office Etiquette (Poseidon Press; $13.95), which has been selling briskly since publication last month.

Though the authors agree on most points, their approaches differ. Baldrige brings a certain high-toned flair to such workaday frustrations as what to do when a business associate, after having invited you to lunch, fails to appear. The first rule: go to the table, but do not eat or drink anything while waiting. "It looks sloppy," she says. After 20 minutes of staring at the bread sticks and playing with the matches, the executive should tip the waiter $5 or $10 and leave. Later the executive can mention the expenditure to the errant host's secretary.

Baldrige also offers other bits of practical upper-management-level advice. Examples: even though there are telephone jacks at the tables of "21" in Manhattan, a polite person does not use one to make phone calls in the middle of a meal with others. A young executive can use the boss's first name on the tennis court, but not back at the office.

While Baldrige seems more comfortable giving advice on such matters as what sort of personal stationery to order (use good graphics or a logo) and how to outfit the corporate jet (carry the latest quarterly report), Mazzei's approach is blunter and, at times, more realistic. His advice ranges from how a woman executive should deal with the office boy's crush ("Don't crush it") to how to handle people when taking over a new department ("Make no promises").

Both social arbiters offer guidance that would never have been needed in an earlier era. It is perfectly all right, Mazzei assures readers, to refuse a gift of cocaine or some other illicit drug from a business associate--but be polite. Baldrige adds that, to avoid making the person uncomfortable, the corporate class act would be to hint that you use drugs--but not this one. The two also agree that anyone who plays the radio while working should get a Walkman if a co-worker objects to the noise.

Between women's lib and gay lib, the sexual twists at the modern office can get grotesque. Mazzei devotes a chapter to "Women at Work" and another to "When Cupid Gets Stupid." Among his guidelines: do not compliment women for wearing appropriate business dress; be sure to tell your employer if you are bringing a gay lover to a formal company occasion. Mazzei offers a couple of pages of suggestions on the issue of a kiss on the cheek, warning that it can often end up with "a clash of eyeglass frames and a lot of confusion." When conducting an office affair, Mazzei recommends discretion and closed doors. He suggests that anyone who walks in on two co-workers should beat a hasty retreat and pretend that he saw nothing. Mazzei warns that sex on business trips is particularly hazardous. "Some nighttime behavior at conventions can take on the look of a cheap bedroom farce." But if someone cannot restrain himself or herself, Mazzei advises bringing along a companion. Or, barring that, perhaps a good book. qed This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.