Navigating the Business Lunch

Hey all, sorry for the delay! I was on a business trip for a few days, but now I’m back and I’ve returned to my baller ass cubicle.  Thank you all for your comments and words of encouragement! I’m gonna keep the energy and you all keep the faith!

So, one of my friends commented on navigating the business lunch, which was a coincidence because I recently was invited to lunch with four of the older white ladies that work with me. I didn’t want to go, but they were celebrating something or other so I accompanied them. They may have wanted me to tag along because I’m a nice guy or they may have just wanted to show off their corporate mandingo. Either way, away I went.

Now a couple Sundays ago the pastor told the congregation that women typically use an average of 18,000 words while men use an average of 12,000.  I don’t remember if this number is per day or if it is the extent of our vocabulary or usage, because 18,000 seems like a lot of words to say in a day.  But for arguments sake, I guess it doesn’t matter, because the point that he was making is that women talk more than men.  Now I wouldn’t consider myself sexist, but I recognize that there are things that most women do or don’t do, just as there are things that most men do or don’t do.

To say that women talk more than men makes sense to me, because I think about my mom, and how she talks on the phone. When she’s on the phone, it’s always with a woman. Every so often, she’d have a conversation that could go on for a solid hour. Never would she have these marathon conversations with a guy, even when she was single, which was for about 23 years. Now I don’t believe there weren’t guys out there that couldn’t talk on the phone for that long, but the better reason is because they didn’t want to. I think about myself. I absolutely loathe talking on the phone. At about the 5 minute mark, I get anxious and annoyed and want to be free of it. The only time I don’t feel like this is when I’m talking to my immediate family, because the conversations are usually about something or someone that I really and truly care about or because they know me better than anyone, it is a subject that they know I would want to discuss.  As far as a social call with a friend or extended family member, at about 4:30 I’m strategizing my exit.  I’m lying. There’s really no strategy.  I’ll just say “okay, bye.”  This is pretty abrupt and probably off-putting, but once you talk to me enough times and know that’s just my way, you’d be fine. I get it from my dad.  Oh sh*t, what was the topic? Wow, I’m sorry for that (brief?) aside. I’ll do better to stay on track.

So I’m at the table at one of your run of the mill restaurants. You know, AppleTuesdayChilennigans.  I’m sitting there like a mute while they are bombarding each other with their arsenal of 18,000 words. They talk about their dogs and cats (most black women don’t play that cat shit), their kids and grandkids, and how good the food is on the menu.  Now I don’t have any pets or kids, so I can’t really get into those convos, and while food is a pretty neutral topic, I don’t get into discussions about how good it is and tell stories about different encounters with it.  If you remember my first post about the prepackaged office speak, I mentioned how I don’t have much in common with a white woman, so I usually rely on discussions about the weather to aid me throughout the day.  Luckily, they didn’t focus that much attention on me, so I was good.

What I found amusing was that they started talking about getting pregnant because one of them was planning to and they went into discussing do’s and don’ts of birth control.  Once they realized they were talking about this in my company, they apologized profusely, and I assured them it was ok after I played like I was blushing and all embarrassed when really I didn’t give a shit. I mean, come on, I’m 32. I should know something about birth control without being embarrassed about it! Now if they were talking about some other female type stuff, then that would have been a no no and spoiled my appetite.

The good thing about this lunch was that none of these women were any of the higher ups, so I didn’t have to be “on”, which was a relief and I could concentrate on how good the meal was.  Unfortunately, at AppleTuesdayChilennigans, it’s imperative that you keep your expectations low. I forgot to do that before I ate my sandwich, and was left with the feeling that I should’ve had a V8.

Being “on” at a business lunch is excruciating.  When I was being interviewed, I was taken to lunch by the bosses and had to be “on”.  That meant, laughing at shit that wasn’t funny, keeping my wit sharp, guarding against dead spots in the convo by filling it with questions about the company that I really don’t give a shit about outside of my compensation, and all the while making sure I didn’t order anything that was too messy, and cutting and eating my meat continental style, which is unnatural for me. This sucks of course because you look at the menu and see the ribs (which are my favorite), but pass it up for some unexciting chicken bullshit dish. And then with that continental style, I’m cutting and eating over and over, when I’d rather just cut all the chicken up and eat it without having to pick up the knife again.  Of course like most people, I was taught that that is bad manners. Man, I just want to pick up some good ass saucy bbq ribs and get busy.

Ok, I’ve rambled enough.  But I really don’t have a solution of how to navigate the business lunch. It’s a necessary evil and you’d have to keep all the things in mind that they taught you. Of course if your skills were THAT sought after, your table manners wouldn’t matter as much. But when you know you’re one of the only black people in your department or organization, you simply have to represent and can’t afford to be perceived as a caveman or cavewoman that doesn’t know which fork to use with which course of the meal.  I guess it just depends on the occasion and how important the people are you’re eating with. Although I figure if you have lunch with some lowlife ass kissing office snitch out to sandbag you, they could rat you out to your boss and tell him or her that you have poor table manners, ate ribs, and licked your fingers afterwards.