Soldiering forward with fork, knife and napkin at the ready

NEW YORK

The olive was already rolling around on Dan Hoffman's tongue before he realized he'd been lured into a boobytrap set amid the mixed greens.

So Hoffman quickly devised an emergency plan to escape embarrassment: He swallowed the pit.

Innovative, certainly, if not exactly orthodox business behavior. But then, that's why Hoffman's Manhattan law firm, Proskauer Rose LLP, had asked him and about 70 other summer hires to report to the executive conference room. Today, they were assigned to etiquette bootcamp.

"Believe me, many people have been stuck on the ladder of success because somebody said, 'Did you see his table manners?" etiquette instructor Ann Marie Sabath counseled, as she paced Oprah-like between the rows of tables. "Now that won't happen to you."

More employers and educators are emphasizing that message or variations on it, by training young workers in the rituals of cutlery and napkin usage, exchanging business cards, making small talk, even how to confront an olive.

The training, etiquette experts and employers say, addresses a deficit of decorum among many young office workers, highlighted in a business environment where the line between casual and crude is increasingly blurred and constantly shifting.

It's amazing, for the most part, that these people don't know how to cut their meat, or what to do with a fork or a toothpick," said Maria Everding, a St. Louis-based etiquette consultant who conducts training for employers and on college campuses. "I tell them ... Jell-O shots are not professional drinks."

That may sound obvious -- until you hear Everding's tales of the attorney who scratched his head with his fork, or the numerous students she has observed licking their fingers during training meals.

Even so, after an economic boom that saw many college graduates in high-tech and other fast-growing sectors winning lucrative job offers almost in spite of the way they dressed, the focus on etiquette can be unsettling.

Employers, though, say they value the training because changing professional dynamics have created a potential minefield of missteps. They cite everything from the increased dependence on e-mail and the omnipresence of cell phones to shifts in gender roles as reasons to re-emphasize the basics.

"It's not really how to be a lawyer, but how to be a professional," said Anita Zigman, in charge of training for Proskauer Rose, a white-shoe firm specializing in corporate law.

As taught by Sabath on this particular day, being a professional begins with correctly holding a fork, progresses to the five key rules for using a napkin and graduates to tutelage in how to handle difficult-to-eat foods.

"I feel like I'm 8 years old again and at my friend's house, trying to remember my parent's instructions," whispered Jeff Gentes, a law student at New York University from Lebanon, Conn. "I mean, fancy for me is sitting ... at the bar at the Outback" steak house.

To help illustrate all of Sabath's lessons, white-jacketed waiters served each lawyer-to-be rolls and butter, a green salad, and an entree of chicken filet sauteed with rosemary, alongside peas and fettucine, each dish carefully chosen for difficulty.

Later, there will be lengthy examination of why and how men should don undershirts, what types of shoes women should wear and how to introduce someone whose name you've forgotten.

There are rules, lot of rules, and almost as many caveats. There are also at least a few sighs, some muttering and eye-rolling, a fair amount of laughter and some pretty good questions.

"I'm wondering, how am I going to work the lemon slice into the iced tea?," someone asked from the back of the room. "What if you have food stuck between your teeth?" another queried. "Can you ever dip bread in soup or sauce?" another asked.

"The answer is yes," said Sabath, a Cincinnati-based consultant who plays a role more akin to eccentric aunt than stern schoolmarm. "When you are home, when the blinds are pulled."

As for olive pits, she advised, the remainder of any food that goes into the mouth with a utensil should come out with a utensil, and be laid on the edge of the plate. Olives served as an antipasto can be eaten by hand, and taken out by hand. But better yet, she said, avoid the embarrassment and leave the olive uneaten.

Such coaching has made its way into other workplaces, as well as to campuses. At BKD LLP, a Springfield, Mo.-based accounting and consulting firm, the first week of work for new recruits is called Camp BKD, and includes a half-day of etiquette training.

The session begins with one hour in a classroom, followed by a cocktail hour and five-course meal at a members-only dining club, where trainees work on the skills of simultaneously eating and interacting. The lessons are important: At week's end, the new employees will sit down to a country club banquet with the firm's lead partners.

"We're taking college graduates right out of school and the nature of their job means they're going to be interacting with business leaders," said Randy Hultz, the company's director of career development, "We need to equip them to be able to have those interactions."

Fifth Third Bank, headquartered in Cincinnati, has for the past four years been offering etiquette training as a way to improve its reputation for customer service. Bank officers have access to individual training, while other employees can sign up for group sessions.

At Millikin University, in Decatur, Ill., the career placement center began organizing mealtime etiquette sessions four years ago.

"The program comes from a need that we hear of from employers who say that one of the greatest weaknesses students have these days are in their soft skills -- how well they communicate, their knowledge of the social graces, skills that are difficult to measure," said Ray Angle, the career center's director.

Some of the future lawyers tutored by Sabath are a little embarrassed by that idea, but testify to its importance. Tal Zarsky, a Columbia University law student, recalled the friend who went to an interview for a job at IBM, but refused to wear a suit. Jennifer Marion, a student at the University of Chicago, said a friend's company rejected a job applicant because he ordered chocolate ice cream at an interview lunch -- a decision seen as indicating he was unwilling to take risks.

"I guess most kids our age don't know it," said Hoffman, a Harvard University law student who, after his run-in with the olive, invited Sabath's scrutiny for the way his undershirt was showing from his unbuttoned collar. "But I wouldn't want to be around a partner and look like a fool."