Etiqueta Para Profesionales

Rating:
Summary: Excelente Libro para todo profesional
Review: Etiqueta para profesionales es un libro excelente, recomendado para todo profesional comprometido con su trabajo y con deseos de superarse.Muy util en especial para personas que a diario tratan con público o clientes.

Rating:
Summary: Are good manners obsolete?
Review: People with good manners sometimes seem to be as rare as the Puerto Rican parrot -- and for one of the same reasons. Parrots and polite people have fewer and fewer opportunities to meet.

People communicate more with their ten-ounce titanium PCS devices than they do with the humans in the next offices. Cel phones have become our intimate companions. I had dinner with my wife recently at a "fine" restaurant and our conversation was constantly interrupted by a high decibel individual at the next table who was dining with a cellular phone.

Parrots, of course, are not responsible for their dwindling habitat. People have a choice. If we don't know what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior, we can look it up in a book.

Books on etiquette have been published since the 14th century. The word, which literally means "ticket" in French, came into use around 1750 and has come to mean "conduct required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life." We still use the word ticket in English to mean doing the correct or desirable thing: "A new book on etiquette in business, that's the ticket."

Margot McCloskey Colon has just come to our rescue with Etiqueta para profesionales (Etiquette for Professionals). In this 218-page Spanish language paperback, she updates the rules of etiquette to our time and place. Etiquette is for her a collection of common sense rules for helping us live together and do business together in harmony. "Harmony generates good will," she says "and good will improves productivity."

The book defines terms rarely heard in the workplace: words like courtesy, elegance, ethics, dignity, decorum, respect, discretion and tact. It sets - or reminds us of - guidelines for dressing appropriately, conducting ourselves in the workplace, organizing activities, behaving at the dinner table, watching our language, writing notes and letters, talking on the telephone and dealing with other cultures. It is a comprehensive overview of correct and desirable behavior that can help us at any stage of our careers.

The greatest charms of the book are its applicability to Hispanic culture and that most of its rules are short and to the point. Here are just a few examples:

On long waits for appointments. "Your time is as important as anyone else's. Unless there is a logical and explicit explanation for an unavoidable delay, don't wait more than an hour for anyone," she advises. "If it is a professional service [such as health care] that someone is offering, find a new provider -- and politely let the original one know why you will no longer be using his or her services."

On kisses. One of the great charms of the Hispanic culture is that friends often kiss as a greeting. Not in the office, however. "Among colleagues who see each other every day in the office, greeting each other with a kiss is... out of place. A pleasant good morning is quite enough," she says.

Buenos días, mi amorcito. Using words like "Mi cielo," "corazón," "negrita," y "cariño" at the workplace is disrespectful and impertinent. "Treat all people with the respect they deserve. Good manners never go out of fashion."

Which wine is mine? One of the most frequent errors at the dinner table occurs when someone takes the wrong wine or uses the wrong bread plate. "If you remember that solids go on the left, liquids on the right, you will never be embarrassed by having taken your neighbors salad, bread or wine," she explains.

To cel or not to cel. "Do not receive or make calls in places such as restaurants [Amen!], concert halls, churches, hospitals and funeral homes. Turn it off before you go in.... Machines are impersonal, but people who use them should be considerate of others and mind their manners."

Author Margot McCloskey Colon was born in San Juan and studied at the University of Puerto Rico and on the mainland US. She was the founder and president of the McCloskey School of Social Graces and modeling which was for many years Puerto Rico's best known finishing school. In 1989 she began Rosaly, McCloskey & Huyke, a company that offers consulting and seminar on professional etiquette to some of Puerto Rico's largest corporations.

The author must be a very charming. The book is certainly is. I recommend it for anyone who wants to know what is correct behavior in Puerto Rico, the Spanish Caribbean and Spanish Latin America. It can also be very useful for Spanish speaking people on the mainland US who realize that good manners are not obsolete... and can help them get ahead in business.