Teaching formal manners as part of pledging/new membership?

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

But even the rules that can seem arbitrary can matter -- where you put the napkin when you get up from the table can be a signal to servers as to whether you're coming back. (In your chair means you're coming back; loosely folded to the left of your plate means you are not.)

Exactly! I know I'd be mad if my plate was cleared when I wasn't yet finished!

[naraht]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

Exactly! I know I'd be mad if my plate was cleared when I wasn't yet finished!

One issue with teaching ettiquette at this banquet was that the wait staff was not nearly knowledgeable to appreciate it. For example, when we sat down, the caesar salad and roll were at each place as well as appropriate silverware and a desert (one of two different types) was between the eating area and the centerpiece. When they delivered the dinner they left the plastic cover on until the entire table was served and the picked them up, however the server didn't realize that one person had not been served (we had little place cards with the selected meal indicated by a colored dot. They *never* cleared the dinner plates from our table, when our table was done eating our dinners, we just sort of waited (as the plates had been cleared at *some* other tables, but eventually, we just gave up and traded our dinner dishes for the desert dishes.

What I think was true is that the woman running the catering/wait staff knew what to do, but everyone else was fairly clueless.