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Bad Manners and Brimstone
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#Post#: 17601--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: TeamBhakta Date: October 29, 2018, 8:52 pm
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The one gripe I have is that the story is second hand, told to
the author by a friend of the workers it supposedly happened to.
#Post#: 17603--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: TootsNYC Date: October 29, 2018, 8:59 pm
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A meeting at noon that would be over by 1pm or 1:30 might not
include food--you can eat after.
Ditto a meeting that started at 1 might not include food,
thinking you'd eat before.
But I would absolutely say that.
And so incredibly rude to eat in front of them. If it's a
meeting, it's work, and you can eat your lunch after.
#Post#: 17609--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: NyaChan Date: October 29, 2018, 10:12 pm
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I think it depends on the relationships between the parties. If
a vendor sets up a meeting with me over lunch at their office, I
would expect to be offered a beverage or lunch. If it’s a more
balanced relationship, I would expect to be informed that they
are brown bagging it so I too could bring food. If it was just
an internal meeting, I’d eat before or after unless someone
actually said it was supposed to be a working lunch. Even then,
I’ve seen people opt not to bring anything, but at least it was
their choice.
#Post#: 17618--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: Aleko Date: October 30, 2018, 2:44 am
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This situation may have arisen from cultural differences: but I
think it was far more likely simple failure of the people
instigating the meeting to communicate whether it was a
'lunchtime meeting' at all (after all, a meeting at say 12 noon
might or might not be 'lunchtime') and if it was, whether food
would be provided. You wouldn't have to be from a foreign
country to guess that one wrong. And I for one certainly
wouldn't turn up to a business meeting with my own sandwich
unless I had specifically been informed that that was the idea.
But regardless of how the situation came about, the awkwardness
of the Americans snarfing their lunch in front of the hungry
Persians wasn't a case of cultural difference but of simple
rudeness. I don't think there is any culture in the world where
it is polite or decent to feed your face when in the company of
people who have nothing to eat. You either get them something to
eat; offer to share; or don't eat and keep your food out of
sight till your meeting has broken up. Those Americans were
guilty of both inefficiency and rudeness.
Edited to add:
And asking 'Would you mind if we ate during the meeting?’
doesn't let them off the hook; in fact it just rubbed salt in
the wound. No polite person can possibly say what they really
think, which is 'Yes, we would mind very much. We expected that
having set up a meeting at lunchtime you would provide lunch, or
that at the very least there would be some means of us all
ordering ourselves some food. We don't want to have to sit and
watch you eating while our tummies rumble, so kindly put your
sandwiches away till we have finished our meeting, you
incompetent boors.' So they were obliged to put on fake smiles
and assure their "hosts" that they didn't mind a bit.
My feeling is, if you're going to do something rude anyway, just
be rude. At least don't oblige the person you're offending to
sanction your rudeness, and go away saying 'Well, they said they
didn't mind, so that was okay, right?'!
#Post#: 17671--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: TootsNYC Date: October 30, 2018, 12:55 pm
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I agree, but even more better: If you think you should ask
whether someone minds, then you should just not do it at all.
#Post#: 17701--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: guest657 Date: October 30, 2018, 3:17 pm
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The only scenario where I could possibly see this as not rude,
would be if the visitors had asked for an opportunity to make a
sales pitch to the company. If a vendor wants to come pitch,
they should be providing the lunch. If they don't, the clients
shouldn't have to sit there and be hungry.
But that doesn't sound like the situation here.
#Post#: 17705--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: Hmmm Date: October 30, 2018, 3:50 pm
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[quote author=Anon4Now link=topic=779.msg17701#msg17701
date=1540930655]
The only scenario where I could possibly see this as not rude,
would be if the visitors had asked for an opportunity to make a
sales pitch to the company. If a vendor wants to come pitch,
they should be providing the lunch. If they don't, the clients
shouldn't have to sit there and be hungry.
But that doesn't sound like the situation here.
[/quote]
Yeah, that was the scenario I was thinking. The other is the
request to meet was last minute and they were working them in at
the only time they had available, their lunch hour.
I'm just really curious why they arrived a business meeting
expecting a meal and so hungry they were covetting the other's
brown bag lunches. It doesn't matter what time the meeting is,
unless I'm told that a meal will be provided, I never expect
one.
#Post#: 17706--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: TootsNYC Date: October 30, 2018, 3:54 pm
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[quote author=Anon4Now link=topic=779.msg17701#msg17701
date=1540930655]
The only scenario where I could possibly see this as not rude,
would be if the visitors had asked for an opportunity to make a
sales pitch to the company. If a vendor wants to come pitch,
they should be providing the lunch. If they don't, the clients
shouldn't have to sit there and be hungry.
But that doesn't sound like the situation here.
[/quote]
But even then, the employees "receiving" the sales pitch
shouldn't be eating!
This is work, so they shouldn't need to count it as their lunch
hour; they can eat on their lunch time.
#Post#: 17727--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: NyaChan Date: October 30, 2018, 7:05 pm
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[quote author=TootsNYC link=topic=779.msg17706#msg17706
date=1540932863]
[quote author=Anon4Now link=topic=779.msg17701#msg17701
date=1540930655]
The only scenario where I could possibly see this as not rude,
would be if the visitors had asked for an opportunity to make a
sales pitch to the company. If a vendor wants to come pitch,
they should be providing the lunch. If they don't, the clients
shouldn't have to sit there and be hungry.
But that doesn't sound like the situation here.
[/quote]
But even then, the employees "receiving" the sales pitch
shouldn't be eating!
This is work, so they shouldn't need to count it as their lunch
hour; they can eat on their lunch time.
[/quote]
Why on earth not? When we go to present at a clients we take
them out if they’ll let us, but a lot of them don’t have the
extra time. We fully expect that they’ll eat and drink while we
present because the second the meeting is over, most have to run
right back to their desk.
#Post#: 17729--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meeting at lunch time and only providing for yourselves
By: guest657 Date: October 30, 2018, 7:41 pm
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[quote author=NyaChan link=topic=779.msg17727#msg17727
date=1540944336]
[quote author=TootsNYC link=topic=779.msg17706#msg17706
date=1540932863]
[quote author=Anon4Now link=topic=779.msg17701#msg17701
date=1540930655]
The only scenario where I could possibly see this as not rude,
would be if the visitors had asked for an opportunity to make a
sales pitch to the company. If a vendor wants to come pitch,
they should be providing the lunch. If they don't, the clients
shouldn't have to sit there and be hungry.
But that doesn't sound like the situation here.
[/quote]
But even then, the employees "receiving" the sales pitch
shouldn't be eating!
This is work, so they shouldn't need to count it as their lunch
hour; they can eat on their lunch time.
[/quote]
Why on earth not? When we go to present at a clients we take
them out if they’ll let us, but a lot of them don’t have the
extra time. We fully expect that they’ll eat and drink while we
present because the second the meeting is over, most have to run
right back to their desk.
[/quote]
Yeah, I guess it's that in this setup (at least as I've seen
it), the dynamic is that the client company is doing a pretty
big favor by taking time to hear the vendor at all. It's not a
host/guest situation.
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