We’re professional, we travel for a living, decoding culture for paying clients. But the very nature of our outsider status, our constant travel means that we don’t understand the nuanced etiquette that separates appropriate from not.

Over the years I’ve: pointed body parts at the wrong people; said the wrong things to the wrong people at exactly the wrong time; sat in the wrong place; touched things that should have been left untouched; and behaved in an otherwise wholly inappropriate way for that moment, place and time. And over the years I’ve developed strategies for minimising the risk of it happening again, and for when it does happen, recovering gracefully.

4 questions:
– When is the last time you breached local etiquette?
– What was the cost/reward of breaching local etiquette?
– How do you minimise the risk of committing a faux pas?
– How did you recover from the situation?

Photo: A gent from Covent Garden Carhartt.