Lunches are never free

I’ve learned in my almost ten years in the work world, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Delusional when I was back in college I thought that the real world was just like “Friends” or “felicity” and paperback novels about NYC. Eating at funky restaurants, one of my beautiful friends would whip out her Louis Vuitton wallet and put down her platinum AMEX card and gracefully utter the words, “It’s on the company.” And actually my first encounters with the expense card culture were not unlike my delusional thoughts. Being young, cute and perpetually single in NYC, I honestly thought that the business lunch and dinner were comprised of a bunch of old men expensing champagne, dining with me at swank restaurants while having sexy conversations about religion, politics, Art and of course sex. I mean, that is what my mentors exposed me to whenever we went out to dinner.

One of the main reasons why I took my job a couple of years ago was because of the opportunities to go to lunch on other people’s dimes. And doesn’t it sound like a great idea? Get paid to eat, drink and chat to strangers! Order food without looking on the right side of the menu, get drunk as someone else paid, all the while chatting about interesting thought provoking topics.

Then I had my first client lunch. And then I had my second. And then the third.

I’ve become a pro at these lunches and learned that I had to also believe in Santa Claus when I thought someone was going to pay for me to eat awesome food and get drunk as I didn’t have to worry about social acceptability with my leftist opinions. This is the ad world in the US, every opportunity is seen as a network, everyone gossips and working in such an incestuous industry you learn that if you fuck up people will take notice and you will have a reputation. Such as some people who have graced my presence are known in industry circles as drunks, pervs, and the whores sleeping with xyz.

Sitting through enough of these lunches and being a rogue sociologist (without any formal schooling) I’ve noticed patterns in behavior. If the group is all women, the conversation will drift towards shopping, if its men, sports reign supreme. It’s always a mundane topic, boring, and leaving me looking into my soup for some type of inspiration to join the conversation.

However, wanting people to learn from the mistakes lessons I never remember, I’ve enclosed the three point cheat sheet for all of you ambitious kids out there. Brush up on these three points, and you would make Emily Post beam with pride. Well, from the grave…and you know that has to mean something especially because we know how hard it is to find sun six feet under.

Pointless “safe” conversation topics that always come up in dinner:

1. TV/Movies: Sounds like a safe bet doesn’t it? And whenever the conversation turns towards this topic, being the TV/Film buff that I am should make it enjoyable and engaging. NOT! (Forgive the Wayne’s World reference.) Forget everything that you know about foreign and Indy movies. I bet nobody at the table saw [Insert obscure German film here]. Mention it, and it looks like you are trying too hard and are borderline pretentious. You cross into pretentious if you say that you saw it without subtitles at the Berlinale when you were taking time off from your stressful college life. Stick to the basics, preferably prime time, major network television; any reality tv show. My new found interest in tv is rooted in my desire to fit in with my colleagues. I’ve actually begun to treat tv watching as my homework, just like reading Ad Age before bed.

2. Significant Others aka boyfriend/girlfriend: I am the only single person on my team. It’s not even like any of them are recently tied to a significant other either. They are all in long term monogamous marriages. The topic comes up every lunch/dinner. “How is _____?” Or the ever infuriating, “Christine, who are you dating? Anyone special?” and then someone would say “what’s your flavor this week?”

You want to succeed in the corporate world? Get a boyfriend/girlfriend. You want the girls to be envious of you in the corporate world? Get a big fucking ring, because after we meet someone with a big rock, we talk about her and the ring for days.

3. Hobbies: And no drinking doesn’t count. Even if you are an adult beverage connoisseur like me. Talk about the subtleties of a nice scotch, and you like an old man or a drunk…with very expensive tastes. Stick to safe things that everyone enjoys and denotes good breeding: tennis, squash, sailing, reading Oprah’s book club books (but you have to hate Frey). Again, its slim pickings when I can find someone who has read Bordeiu and can discuss the difference in theses when compared to Weber.

Did you notice that I didn’t mention business? Don’t be the loser who has nothing to talk about except for work. Just because you live at your office doesn’t mean that everyone has to know. The beauty of NYC: none of us have lives outside the office, we cultivate interests so we appear more interesting.

The above reasons are why I am usually silent about my personal life…nobody believes that the shit happens to me. Hell, I wouldn’t even believe that half the shit happens to me (like what happened last weekend – I could write a movie based on what happened to me – and yes, I will recount once I am fully ready to accept that it did actually happen to me). Learn from me. Oh, and it should go without saying, never have more than 2.5 drinks at dinner because even if you can handle your liquor you’ll still look like the office.