The classic advice has always been “A gentleman never forces his attention on a lady.” And in the workplace, this classic advice becomes gender neutral and also more behavior specific: a colleague never forces one’s physical attention on another colleague. So what on earth are we to make of pro-hugging executives like Leah McGowen-Hare at Salesforce, who introduced color-coded wristbands at a company staff conference to communicate physical contact preferences? This was not the sort of thing Etiquetteer expected to ponder yesterday until a dear friend and reader forwarded this piece from The New York Times that is really about the resurgence of the wristband industry.
Etiquetteer’s first thought was that, if a male executive has proposed this system, his motives would have been immediately suspect. Hugging, essentially a social behavior, belongs rarely if at all in an office environment*. Just because you’re pro-hugging doesn’t automatically make that preference Perfectly Proper Workplace Conduct. Even without the coronavirus pandemic forcing us to reevaluate how we feel about touching People Outside One’s Bubble, there’s enough to worry about without having to learn a color-coded Hugging Preferences System.
Then Etiquetteer remembered, just at the start of the pandemic in February, 2020, the nonsense about “the L.A. Hug” (also in the Times)**. Two years in, there’s no denying that many of us do miss a physical embrace — but the workplace is really still not the place to seek it. Here’s the system Etiquetteer would prefer everyone learn at the office, regardless of Hugging Preference:
Back off. There will be no hugging.
Handshakes remain Perfectly Proper, but during the pandemic they may be declined with no loss of honor to either party.
Fist bumps and elbow bumps have become Perfectly Proper during the pandemic, and may remain with us long after.
No, the heinie wiggle is not appropriate for the workplace. Really, people.
It would be much more Perfectly Proper to go back to bowing our heads in greeting. So dignified, graceful, and unisex. Etiquetteer fears that would feel too cold and old-fashioned to too many people, alas.
Pro-huggers may say banning office hugging is unnatural, but Etiquetteer will always respond with the upright words of Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen: “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on this earth to rise above.”
Etiquetteer wishes you a Perfectly Proper work day in which the integrity of your physical space is respected.
*This could, perhaps, be debated in different types of work environments, such as the performing arts (in which Etiquetteer has personal experience), and restaurants (mentioned more than once in the comments section of that Times article. But Etiquetteer is not here to debate that today.
**You can read Etiquetteer’s thoughts on that here.