Deportment classes: 04 (Singapore)

 

Two other interesting things we were taught by Miss Manning were:

(1) How to shut the door of the interview room after you’ve got in.  This was another visual tidiness exercise.  One would usually enter the room, and turn round to shut the door.  This would mean showing your back to the interviewer(s) in the room.  Miss Manning said that it wasn’t just not nice for them to see your back.  More importantly, you want to present them with your smiling Chinese-opera-performer face (complete with strong eye shadow and bright red lipstick), to make a strong first impression.  Yes, very logical, very strategic.

So, you enter the room, facing the interviewer(s), reach out for the door behind you, and shut it, still facing the interviewer(s).  And smiling your Chinese-opera-performer face, complete with strong eye shadow and bright red lipstick.

(2) How to extricate your hand after the handshake.  This was a lesson in diplomacy should the interviewer turn out to be a DOM (dirty old man).  Whether it’s the first handshake, or the parting one, if the DOM grips your hand tightly and won’t let go (while he’s leering at your blue eye shadow and scarlet lipstick), you say with a smile and a sweet voice, most politely, “Can I have my hand back, please?”

As an ex-model, Miss Manning presumably had a lot of experience from a lot of exposure to DOMs.  

(Singapore,1974)