Etiquette

Part of my job includes facilitating orientations or conducting training sessions and I like it whenever I am asked to participate in such. This morning, I conducted an HR orientation with middle managers who were externally hired. They requested for this because they felt they needed to get acquainted with the systems and processes of the company.

So I entered the room with about 10 of them happily chatting away. And since a lot of people in the company only respect co-workers if they are "older" than them, I obviously did not get any. I went ahead and set up the projector and computer and had to speak in a loud voice to call their attention. Before we formally began, I decided to do a quick introduction thing so that I could get to know all of them. By this time, there were 2 employees who kept giggling. Quite annoyed I told them to settle down. Instead of stopping, they continued to give each other the look. One got a hold of her organizer and tried to whisper something to the other one and then they started giggling again. So I went ahead and introduced myself and encouraged the participants to do the same. As the others started to introduce themselves, these 2 gigglers continued with what they were doing. And when it came to the part where they were to say their names, they could not stop giggling in between.

I felt it was rather improper for those 2 to be displaying such behavior. Rude in fact. But I felt I was not in any position to say something or to correct them or something. So I just let it pass. Such behavior would be corrected, in time I guess. Just really made me wonder why such had to be done.