San Francisco Bay Area Tech Workplace Etiquette
Bay Area Hygiene, Workplace Behavior. Silicon Valley Tech Employee Etiquette Guide. Offline & Social Media Etiquette, San Francisco Tech Worker Manners
Last updated: October 1, 2025
Disclaimer: I am not a therapist, nor am I an attorney. It’s important to seek help from qualified professionals and not treat this as legal advice.
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Etiquette Coaches, Classes Silicon Valley, Bay Area
Given how often early staged startups delay hiring for HR roles, how often people are hired from diverse backgrounds and cultures, how much time is spent at offices, how young people are coming into positions of power (and money), and other related factors, there has been a strong demand for getting help with addressing behavior, etiquette and other soft skills with workforces.
Etiquette coaches and classes have traditionally focused on communication, dining, and other similar areas, but the increased usage of apps, blurred lines between home and office, and the amount of information shared (or at least easily available online) has skyrocketed, a whole new approach and strategy is needed to help protect employees, employers and IP.
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Bay Area, Silicon Valley Employee Etiquette Guide
This is the guide I wish I didn’t have to write, but here we are. After working with men and women over the past 12 years with their dating efforts from first impressions, eye contact, messaging, photos, date ideas, reading people/cutting off time-wasters and more, the time has come to put this out there.
I have also spent the last 12 years working remotely all over the city and greater Bay Area from cafes, coffee shops, public spaces, hotel lobbies, coworking spaces, private clubs, lounges, bars, and more, in between meetings and scoping out places to take photos discreetly for clients for their dating profiles.
I have been asked to put this guide together from friends, clients, too many random people I meet at bars and restaurants, guests at dinner parties, recruiters, managers, heads of HR, VC’s, and nearly every Bay Area woman as common sense is not so common after all.
After giving folks advice that is intimate and personal for as long as I have, sometimes it’s easier to hear this from someone like me than someone close to you as relationships can be strained or funding lost, while creating more unnecessary work for your head of HR.
Gift this article anonymously to someone you care about: employee, manager, cubicle or coworking space mate, Hinge date, neighbor, roommate, or sibling.
Tech Office Behavior Online, Offline San Francisco
Basic etiquette, hygiene, and common knowledge can no longer be assumed. We live in an age where many people are unable to communicate with each other IRL. The number of managers, who lack supervisory skills, are at an all-time high. It’s one thing to be a hot-shot IC, it’s another to lead others.
The divide between home and office has blurred with late nights at the office, catered lunches, in-office gyms and more.
The amount of things I have observed is insane - including VC spending habits on Miami trips, women crying at the bar of Michelin star restaurants about their very public partners/husbands cheating on them, private info founders keep from their co-founders, sensitive decks on laptops at cafes, and the amount of private info people put on their dating profiles.
Most etiquette coaches lack the insight into modern ways employees can expose their employers, investors, business partners and more. Sure, knowing basic dining, hygiene and workplace etiquette is important, but the offline/online stuff, lack of self-awareness and social skills are where lots of people get in trouble.
Why should you listen to me? I have had the (dis)pleasure of breaking news to folks regarding hygiene, first impressions, social etiquette, digital footprints and more through my dating coach and image consulting services. These topics are never comfortable; sometimes it’s easier to hear things from me rather than someone closer to the intended recipient.
Back when I use to work in tech here in SF, I was deeply involved in our company culture; from helping to pick out venues for holiday parties, organizing company superbowl/march madness pools, heading up our community involvement teams and working cross-functionally across the entire organization from engineering/product to sales/mkt/custom service and executive teams.
I was also the first and only people to be allowed to work remotely (in NYC) back in 2011 way before remote work became the norm.
Workplace Etiquette Bay Area Companies
The following advice is not necessarily explicit for companies and workers in the Bay Area, but they are more common based on startup cultures, remote work, demographics of employees, industries, cultures and more.
A lot of this can be applied to workplaces in NYC, LA, Austin and beyond.
This guide is over a decade in the making from things I have observed as a dating coach, someone who works at cafes, attends happy hours near offices, sits at the bar at restaurants, and more. It’s as much about etiquette as it is about highlighting blind spots and warnings that could affect you or your employees, with a focus on more unconventional perspectives and all the one-off situations that are impossible to conceive.
People are not aware of who may be around them at any time. Similarly, they are not always aware of the possibility of who others know or if they may be a current/future investor, competitor, supervisor, business partner or tech journalist.
I will update this list based on interest, feedback from readers, employers, investors, bartenders, servers and frustrated women. Even if I don’t have the answers you seek, I am great at interviewing people and asking the right questions to think about these things that most people overlook or are even unaware of in today’s modern society.
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