Читать книгу Blaikie’s Guide to Modern Manners - Thomas Blaikie - Страница 23

Lifts usually impose a complete suspension of normal life. Going up and going down, people become non-people, even mothers and children no longer know each other; everybody stares at the walls. Lifts in offices are different. Here there might be opportunities to hobnob with top people (didn’t Melanie Griffith get her big break in Working Girl when she encountered Harrison Ford in the lift?). Matt once heard ‘some whippersnapper trying to discuss the quarterly results with the MD in an embarrassingly familiar way’ and on another occasion ‘two women from accounts, which is my department, talking at the tops of their voices about the postboy’s sex life or what they imagined it to be’.

 Don’t corner senior management in the lift to try and make an impression. It’s not fair on them. There’ll be other chances.

 Senior management, when in the lift, should always make a point of condescending to speak.

 Don’t forget that the other people in the lift can hear what you’re saying.

 Don’t talk shop in the lift. It’s boring for everybody else.