Blog

Not your grandmother’s etiquette

Arden Clise Branding-288-Edit

Hello and welcome to the Clise Etiquette blog, a place to discuss savvy and not so savvy decorum. Etiquette may sound like a stuffy or old-fashioned topic, but it’s really just about making yourself and others more comfortable by being respectful, kind and professional.

I am an etiquette consultant, speaker, trainer, coach and author of Spinach in Your Boss’s Teeth: Essential Etiquette for Professional Success. I share etiquette and protocol tips, stories and techniques that you can use to feel more confident, at ease and successful socially and in the workplace.

I invite you to share your thoughts and questions on the situations in life that confuse you, anger you, give you pause or make you proud. Please feel free to let me know if there are topics you’d like me to discuss or hear more about. Some of my best posts come from questions or stories readers share with me.

Thank you for stopping by. I invite you to subscribe to my blog by clicking on the green button.

Dance With Who Brung You

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you may have read in a post or two that I don’t like to cook. Thankfully my husband Eric doesn’t mind too much being the house chef. However, we agreed Sunday dinner is my one night to cook. To make cooking my Sunday meal more fun, I…

The Show Will Go On!

I’m just thrilled Family Fourth at Lake Union will take place this year thanks to the donations of many Seattle businesses. The outpouring of support from small to big companies is heartwarming. 

The Hesitant Host

I sometimes get invited to a business lunch as a potential client. Interestingly, at the last two lunches I’ve encountered hesitant hosts. That is, after sitting down with our food, the host has waited quite some time to start eating. The etiquette is for the guest to wait for the host to start eating before beginning,…

Say What?

I got a recorded call from Americans United for Change urging us to call our senators to encourage them to pass healthcare reform. At the end of the message they stated the phone number to call. They said the number so fast I had to rewind the message three times. I thought about how much money…

Dogs on the Loose

I was recently walking around Greenlake with a friend on a sunny, therefore packed, day. Twice I encountered dogs that were running loose, their owners unconcerned. In the first situation we were rounding a corner and I saw a dog running towards the water across the concrete path in a very congested area. A rollerbladder…

The Academy Awards: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

As I do every year, I watched the Academy Awards with a few friends. We meet at one friend’s house, enjoy a potluck dinner and gab about the dresses, the emcee(s), the Academy winners and losers. This year had its usual fill of beautiful and not so beautiful moments. We can learn many etiquette lessons by…

Are you Polly Poise or Freak-Out Fred?

I recently taught a social skills etiquette class to some high school students from Puget Sound Community School. One of the topics I covered was poise. I asked my students what poise meant to them. They replied “good posture”, “being confident” and “grace”. While those are part of poise there is more to it.

Public Speaking Tips

I’ve been working with a client who is preparing for an important speech. One of the things we discussed is the protocol of introducing someone. Many speakers are unaware of proper speaking protocol, so I thought I’d share some tips.

Job Search Etiquette

I asked my Facebook fans for ideas for a blog post and got some really good questions. They were focused on job search etiquette. Q. When meeting a potential employer for coffee or a meal to discuss the possibility of working together who picks up the tab? And how do you handle the awkwardness when…

Don’t Be Nosy

I stopped in the grocery store the other day, looking for a special item in addition to the ginger snap cookies my husband had requested. I didn’t find what I wanted but in addition to the ginger snaps I grabbed a bag of potato chips that were calling to me and some jelly beans for…
2017-allstarwinner

Sign up for the award-winning Clise Etiquette newsletter and receive a free chapter of Arden's book Spinach in Your Boss's Teeth.

book-ArdenClise