Business meal table manners represent you. There is nothing more uncomfortable than sitting across the table from your boss and noticing the soup dripping from his mouth and the breadcrumbs stuck to his chin.  Or maybe you are trying to impress an important client and realise you are not sure which knife and fork to use.

A future employer may want to gauge how you might interact with clients and your behaviour at the table indicates how you may handle such interactions.  If you constantly make faux pas while dining, this could be disastrous for your career.  Similarly, if you are taking a client to lunch, you need to know table manners and not end up eating from his/her bread and butter plate or drinking from his/her wine glass.

Listed below are some tips to avoid the most common business meal table manners mistakes:

1.  If you were the one to extend the invitation, then you are the one to pay the bill.
2. Familiarise yourself with the menu in advance.  This way you can suggest speciality of the house dishes and it is also a subtle way of revealing the amount of money you are willing to spend on the meal.
3. Make sure you know which set of drinking glasses are yours and which is your bread and butter plate.  Your glasses are on your right and your bread and butter plate is on the left.
4. If you need to remove something from your mouth, go to the washroom to do this.
5. If you are asked to pass the salt, pass both the salt and pepper shakers at the same time.   Also, do not salt or pepper your meal before passing them.
6. Do not monopolise the conversation.  Be genuinely interested in getting to know your client.  Also be up to date in current affairs, particularly in areas that may be of interest to your client.  Be relaxed and this way the conversation should just flow.
7. If you need to leave the table during the meal, place the napkin on the back of your chair and push your chair back under the table as you leave.  Simply say “excuse me” before you leave – it is not necessary to announce where you are going.
8. If an accident at the table happens, handle it and forget about it.  It is not necessary to go on and on about it.
9. A dropped utensil stays on the floor.  Simply ask the waiter for another one and continue on with the conversation.
10. Closing a deal should not be the primary focus of having lunch or dinner with a client.   It should be to build or foster a relationship.
11. If you are the guest at the meal, write a short handwritten thank you note to your host.