Etiquette a.k.a. Knigge, the JCI way
Would you have thought that one of the main originators of modern etiquette is a German gentleman by the name of Adolph Freiherr Knigge?
Would you have thought that he wrote his book on ‚etiquette‘ (=knigge), titled Über den Umgang mit Menschen (On Human Relations) as a way to kind of annoy the ruling upper class at the time?
Written in 1788, would you have thought that it includes sections specifically on how to handle animals, objects, etc. as well?
Besides learning interesting facts such as those listed above, we had a fantastic time learning about digital etiquette and restaurant etiquette through a ‚gamified‘, hands-on, practical training, thanks to our fantastic trainer, Jane Hartmann. It was both very informative and interesting!
Listening to the history of Knigge
Discussing the proper order to enter a restaurant
But that was just the warm-up!
The real LOL (=laugh out loud) part of the training started after, in the section aptly named ‚Restaurant Survival‘. In essence, we had the chance to completely, totally misbehave and try out everything that you absolutely should not do in a restaurant – as a ways to learn and remember how to properly do things. Not to spoil it all, but to give a flavor: we had everything from blowing kisses to one another, to kicking our neighbor’s legs, to announcing loudly that someone is going to the toilet and yes, even slurping and ‚forcefully‘ exchanging plates with one another.
Many of us agreed that it has been a long time since we laughed so much, eating together.
As such, I can only recommend both Jane’s services (jane@gentlemanners.ch) and the delicious food and nice wine (& beer) pairing possibilities @ Matt & Elly (https://matt-elly.com/en/). For the referrals, special thanks goes to Markus Stauffiger and Karina Steiger-Gonzalez.
Slurp on,
Daniel (on behalf of AK Training/International)