The polite procrastination rule

Although the rules governing initial workplace encounters allow us to sidestep the problems normally posed by the no-name rule and the handshake dilemma, that’s pretty much where the reassuring formality ends and the potential for embarrassment begins.

For a start, as soon as the initial introductions are completed, there is always an awkward period – usually lasting around five to ten minutes, but it can take up to twenty – in which all or some of the parties feel that it would be rude to start �talking business’ straight away, and everyone tries to pretend that this is really just a friendly social gathering. We procrastinate politely with the usual weather-speak, enquiries about journeys, the obligatory wryly humorous traffic-moan, courteous comments on the host’s excellent directions and rueful jokes about one’s own poor navigation skills, interminable fussing over tea and coffee – including the usual full complement of pleases and thank-yous, appreciative murmurs from the visitors and humorously self-deprecating apologies from the host, and so on, and on.

I always find it hard to keep a straight face during this �polite procrastination’ ritual, because I am reminded of images from wildlife documentaries in which we see birds and other creatures engaging in �displacement activity’ – turning aside and nervously pecking at the ground or grooming themselves when they are in the middle of a confrontation over territory or mating rights or something. In tense, hostile situations, animals often perform these meaningless �displacement’ routines, as a kind of coping mechanism. It is much the same with the English in business meetings: the whole process of doing business makes us uncomfortable and embarrassed, so we distract ourselves and attempt to delay things by performing a lot of irrelevant little rituals.

And woe betide anyone who dares to cut short our therapeutic pecking and fussing. A visiting Canadian businessman complained: �I wish someone had warned me about this earlier. I had a meeting the other day and they’d all been dithering and talking about the weather and making jokes about the M25 for what seemed like half an hour, so I suggested maybe we could get started on the contract and they all looked at me like I’d farted or something! Like, how could I be so crass?’ Another told me he had worked in Japan, and been invited to participate in tea ceremonies �but there you are either having a tea ceremony or you are doing business, they don’t try to pretend the business meeting is really a tea party, like you do here’.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-06