After attending a “professional” networking event, I realized there are some etiquette rules that should be set in stone at these types of events. Hence, I was inspired for this Etiquette Tuesday. I will get straight to the point: let’s shake hands later. We have all been in this scenario: At an event, the spread is predominantly finger foods and someone comes over to shake your hand just as you are about to shove that crab stuffed mushroom in your mouth. The one passed hor d’oeuvres that you waited for all night and now the enjoyable experience is masked with the other persons sweaty hand. Smh (*Translation: Shaking My Head). Shaking hands is definitely a cordial gesture and you should do this in the initial meeting but for goodness sakes does it have to be at these events with the finger foods??
Here’s what I do (*or better yet, would prefer from the other person): We are at the event, we meet, smile and greet one another minus the hand contact (*initially) and exchange all the necessary information of the typical networking session (*business cards, BBM Pins, etc.). It would be kind of awkward for me to pull out my hand sanitizer but in my mind, that’s exactly what I want to do. I do not know where your hands have been and you do not know where mines have been…let’s keep it safe and the contact to simply conversing. Lucky for me, most of my social/networking events are with other foodies and looking back, there is little to no hand contact while the food is being passed around…we know the drill.
