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Updated: 2/17/26 Quick Reference Question: When you're dining with your boss, client, or colleagues, who should pay the bill? Throughout your career, you'll attend business meals at everything from casual sandwich shops to high-end restaurants. Regardless of venue, here's what you need to know about one of the most common questions in business dining. "More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject." — P

When eating soup from a cup, resting the spoon on the saucer instead of in the cup will help you to avoid knocking the handle and spilling the soup. Photo taken at Ashes Boutique and Tea Garden in Jacksonville, Florida.

Keep your business cards clean and crease free by carrying them in a business card holder. Present your business card with the print facing the recipient so she won’t need to turn the card around to read it. Take the time to read a business card that has been presented to you, then carefully put it away in a respectful place. Never give or request a business card from someone who out ranks you. Don’t pass out your cards indiscriminately as this may make you look unprofessiona

Mrs. Obama’s arms get a lot of well-deserved attention: they are toned, yet feminine – what many women aspire to. However, Mrs. Obama’s famous arms were recently upstaged by her elbows when she rested them on the table at a luncheon. Oh the finger wagging and tongue clucking! You would have thought Mrs. Obama had clipped her toenails in public. Faux-rage gripped the internet’s manners police – our beloved First Lady had broken a cardinal rule of etiquette that we all learned

Questions: When inviting a client to a business meal, you should ask her where she would like to go. T / F In a typical place setting, the beverage is on the left and the bread plate is on the right. T / F A seafood or oyster fork is placed to the left of the place setting. T / F A guest should begin eating when her food is served. T / F It is okay to rest your smartphone on the table as long as it is on silent mode. T / F "Corked" wine means that the cork is stuck in the win

When I was a young professional, there were a few business dining dilemmas that always caused me to anxiously shift in my chair as I wondered what to do. These were situations that I hadn’t thought through because the answers seemed obvious. Oh, how I agonized. If only I could tell my younger self to lighten up – stuff happens! Based on my conversations with young professionals, these dilemmas - along with a surprising new one - are still causing worry. So, here they are, som

Most Americans agree that our table manners are not what they used to be. We are simply out of practice – who has time for Sunday supper with the family anymore? And regularly eating meals standing at kitchen counters and in cars hasn’t helped matters. Ironically, as our dining skills continue to wane, business dining is becoming a fact of life as more and more job interviews and meetings are conducted over meals. What does this mean for you? This means that dining etiquette

You’ve exchanged countless emails with your global business partner and you’ve followed her social media content. You feel like you know her - you can rattle off her work history for the past 5 years, her good reads, her favorite musical artists and where she vacationed last summer. So when it’s time for a face-to-face meeting, you’re ready to go, right? Not exactly. While it is true that the information you’ve gleaned from social media and emails will be very useful, you als