Is knowing which knife to use any help in the workplace? Photograph: David Sillitoe
When was the last time your boss asked you to waltz? No, I can't remember either. However, it may be that your job requires you to write formal letters, introduce people, dress smartly, and, if you're lucky, use your knife and fork correctly during a five-course dinner. And if you didn't learn to iron a shirt or tie a bowtie at school or university, by the time you take up your swanky graduate job and start attending corporate events it may seem to late to ask anyone.
The students of Brighton College won't have that problem - they are taking weekly lessons in good manners. But what good is knowing a fish knife from a finger bowl? Surely today's workers need to know more about spreadsheets than tablecloths.
You might be tempted to insert your own cynical barb about fee-paying schools preparing their students for a life of idle luxury rather than hard graft here, but it's not all blacktie and ballroom. The children are also being taught how to use a cash machine and put up a tent. The idea being, presumably, that "etiquette" encompasses a whole range of practical skills for adult life. Skills that many current graduates apparently don't have.
The Guardian's Office Hours supplement looks at modern workplace etiquette every fortnight in the Work Ethics column. We have found that good office manners are now more about the correct use of email, after-work socialising and even blogging about your colleagues.
So are good manners important in your workplace? And if they are, would you update or amend the traditional rules of etiquette for your own job? Perhaps you don't need to waltz, but would you prefer to hear more pleases and thank yous at work? And if you are studying, would you like to take lectures in table manners?
