first name basis

[ciao_yall]

So am I getting old?  I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students?  Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.

I'm older than you, and I rarely use Honorific-LastName to refer to anyone. Maybe in some unique circumstances? My doctor, the college president, some high-ranking political official...

I taught business where first names are very common in the office, even with high-level people. So I had students address me by my first name so they could get used to it. And, because by the time I started teaching as a 30-something I had never been addressed as Miss, Mrs, Ms or anything of the sort. Some preferred to use my last name and that was fine.

We did have a raging debate a few years ago at my Community College Academic Senate. Because we are a CC, depending on the field, faculty come from a range of academic backgrounds, from AA/AS degrees to PhDs. As a Senate it was agreed years ago to not use academic titles in a theme of egalitarianism.

Several women of color objected when a set of minutes was amended by a white man (a PhD himself) to remove "Doctor" from their names when he noticed the lack of consistency with standard practice. I know him and genuinely believe he wasn't thinking about gender/racial lines, just "oops, we don't usually do this."

They were upset because they had earned those titles, and needed them in the working world to be accorded the social and professional respect that didn't come naturally to women of color. Still, others with Master's degrees and below felt a bit dissed, that their contributions would not be as respected if some got to be called "Doctor X" and everyone else was just "X."

Not sure how it was finally settled. I think it was agreed that everyone could choose how they were noted in the roster and minutes. We had a "Ms Bob" who had served in years past and she was the only one who had an honorific... and all was okay with that.

As for me, having an EdD, I feel rather diffident about using my academic title. Yeah, I know, it's not a "real" PhD and 2 of my sisters are MDs. 

[MarathonRunner]

So am I getting old?  I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students?  Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.

Sounds like you should move to Germany. Everyone is Frau or Herr last name there, or Doktor Frau / Herr last name. In Canada, I've always been called by my first name, by clerks, secretaries, physicians, professors, colleagues, subordinates, peers, superiors, etc. It was so weird in Germany, after my PhD was completed, my family physician told me I could address him by his first name, and he could address me by mine, whereas before he was Doktor Lastname or Herr Doktor and I was Frau Mylastname.

[apl68]

So am I getting old?  I should like to solicit some opinionating on the question of who amongst you, being 40+, and esp 50+ (I am 55), just does not want to be addressed by their first names, esp by clerks, secretaries in doc's offices, etc., OR by now-grown former students?  Whatever the rep of Massachusetts for progressive political views, the culture here has always been noticeably more hierarchical than the Midwest, Appalachia, the West, etc., and I was quite frankly raised with the Miss Manners view of when a young adult gets to start calling a vet adult whom he had grown up using titles with, by his first names-- her view is clear, namely that the young adult needs to continue to title the older person until invited to use a first name, cannot ask for such an invitation, and cannot become peeved if no such invite is ever forthcoming.

Sounds like you should move to Germany. Everyone is Frau or Herr last name there, or Doktor Frau / Herr last name. In Canada, I've always been called by my first name, by clerks, secretaries, physicians, professors, colleagues, subordinates, peers, superiors, etc. It was so weird in Germany, after my PhD was completed, my family physician told me I could address him by his first name, and he could address me by mine, whereas before he was Doktor Lastname or Herr Doktor and I was Frau Mylastname.

Or Japan.  Honorifics are the norm there, even within families.  Only quite close friends call each other by given name with no honorific such as -san, -chan, or -kun.  And people only use the latter two honorifics on those that most Americans would be fine with addressing on a first-name basis.

[lightning]

Two spaces after the period, damnit.

Call me Ishmael.

[secundem_artem]

I'm over 65, so I'm a bit older than Kay.  I'd prefer undergrads use Dr. or Professor, but I've never corrected anyone who uses Mr. or Secundem.  I would feel arrogant.  Other faculty, staff, trades people at the house, dental hygienists, pharmacy clerks,  etc. - Secundem is fine. 

The only other time I get Dr. is from other faculty when we occasionally pass each other in the hallway and greet each other with How are you Dr. Artem?  Fine Dr. Scientist, how are you?  And those greetings are done firmly tongue in cheek.

Kay, I think you are fighting a lost cause.  What Tim Gunn from Project Runway used to refer to as "the ongoing slobification of America."

[kaysixteen]

Thanks to all-- random observations:

1) Last week, two separate doc practices had secretaries call me up and leave needed messages, one addressing me as 'Mr. Sixteen', and the other'Kay'.  I do not make MDs call me 'doctor', of course, and am really cognizant of just how difficult a relationship many MDs obviously have with PhD patients, but I confess openly that I never want to be addressed as 'Kay' by receptionists.   It is infantilizing, and this is just not an issue I am willing to surrender my *thinking* on (I never actually correct one who is speaking with me and does address me as 'Kay', however, just admitting only to looking at her in such a way as to hopefully induce her to consider that her attitude is inappropriate.

2) It goes without saying that I have no plans ever to let students so address me, either.  And them I will correct.

3) About 6 years ago I hired a professional career counselor (retired business prof who was close to 70 then) and paid him a boatload of money to help me bring my resume and cover letters up to post-80s modern standards (it surprised me how different he thought this was), and one of the things he got me to do was dump 'Dear Sir' (feminist academics had already gotten me to dump 'Dear Madam' in the 00s).  I guess I saw his point, and of course I did it, but dagnabbit, I myself like being addressed as 'sir' (which, interestingly, I get addressed as much more often at WM nowadays than I did when I started there, in '06), and it surprised me that the the biz professor thought doing so would perhaps offend some male cover letter recipients.  When I get job related correspondence sent to me, I admit I cannot recall when the last time 'Sir' appeared, and usually it comes just as 'Dear Kay', sometimes with nickname versions of my name, and sometimes I get letters addressed to 'Dear Kay Sixteen', which do look as though they had been written by bill collectors.   Who thinks this is professional, let alone polite?

[Wahoo Redux]

Just curious, Kay (not trying to get you to surrender anything), is the differential job title? 

If, for instance, you ran into a vice president of the AAA auto club, could they call you "Kay?" 

Or a district manager at MetLife, for instance---what could they call you?

Would you give your "look" to you mechanic?  A bartender?  A police officer?

Again, just curious about the demarcation between address and infantilization?   

[jerseyjay]

3) About 6 years ago I hired a professional career counselor (retired business prof who was close to 70 then) and paid him a boatload of money to help me bring my resume and cover letters up to post-80s modern standards (it surprised me how different he thought this was), and one of the things he got me to do was dump 'Dear Sir' (feminist academics had already gotten me to dump 'Dear Madam' in the 00s).  I guess I saw his point, and of course I did it, but dagnabbit, I myself like being addressed as 'sir' (which, interestingly, I get addressed as much more often at WM nowadays than I did when I started there, in '06), and it surprised me that the the biz professor thought doing so would perhaps offend some male cover letter recipients.  When I get job related correspondence sent to me, I admit I cannot recall when the last time 'Sir' appeared, and usually it comes just as 'Dear Kay', sometimes with nickname versions of my name, and sometimes I get letters addressed to 'Dear Kay Sixteen', which do look as though they had been written by bill collectors.  Who thinks this is professional, let alone polite?

Some thoughts:
I was taught: when writing somebody whose name you know, you address this person by title last name (Dr. Smith, Mr. Jones, Ms. Adams) and end the letter, Yours, Sincerely. You only write a letter to Dear Sir (or Dear Sir or Madam, or To Whom it May Concern) if you did not know the name of the person you were writing (and end the letter, Yours, Faithfully). (In either case, you sign with a blue fountain pen.) Hence, writing "Dear Sir" to somebody whose name you know is, well, a sign of disrespect. The only time it is appropriate to use Sir to refer to somebody whose name you know is when you are writing somebody who has been knighted, in which case the correct form is to use Sir First name. I have not written many letters to knights, however, so there may be more protocol involved than I remember.

You may be called "sir" now at Walmart more than 16 years ago because you look older and "sir" in contemporary usage is often a polite way of saying old person.(Or people are afraid of your facial tattoos and do not want to upset you.)

I actually have trouble remembering the last time I have had any real correspondence sent to me that was not a bill or a letter from the IRS. I cannot recall ever getting a letter in response to a job application directed to "Dear Sir". The last written letter, on department stationary, that I got in response to a job application was at least a decade ago. Since my name was  known to the person writing (since I applied for the job), I usually got addressed as Dear Dr. Jay, or Dear Professor Jay. In fact the last time I got any correspondence addressed to "Dear Sir" was when I was living in Britain, more than 20 years ago. And these were usually not welcome letters.

[kaysixteen]

I admit I still do recall the lessons in letter-writing in the 4th grade, in an (admittedly tony) Boston suburb, back in 1976, and for anything that would be classed as properly to be within the 'business' letter category, 'Dear Sir', 'Dear Madam', or 'Dear Sir or Madam', was mandatory.   As  to whether to expect that some stranger I met in a nonprofessional context addresses me with a title or 'Sir', I admit as well that this is largely a function of a) the age of the speaker, and/or b) the role of the speaker.  IOW, if you are a 20yo doc office receptionist, just because you know my first name is 'Kay', you do not get to use it.

[Puget]

Key, I and many others have said this before, and I'll say it just once more, out of care for a fellow human who seems to be experiencing a lot of unnecessary suffering of his own creation:

Social norms change. They always have and always will. You can go through life, as you apparently are, in a perpetual state of being aggrieved and offended by that. Or you can choose to let it go and focus on more important things. What might change for you if you chose to let your grievances go? What moments of positive connection with other people might you find? What opportunities might it open for you? You only have one life, why spend it consumed with things like this? 

[kaysixteen]

I suspect many if not most of you would adjust to my life circumstances no better, and in most cases much worse, than I have.   The life of a satisfied college professor, happily ensconced in a community and a job where you would simply never have to encounter and regularly experience that which I deal with essentially daily, are essentially in different universes.  I do not want to brag about myself, but I think I have dealt with these things as best as possible.

That does not mean I have to like these trends, no.  Nor will I.   I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.

[Wahoo Redux]

I have a hard time feeling sorry for you, Kay my man, if you are offended by a 20-yo office receptionist using your first name.  I mean, come on---you and I are the same age.  You did not grow up on a manor in Edwardian England.  We live in a society that prides itself on egalitarianism (in theory and politico-speak, anyway); the receptionist is simply using our current norms.  However, as always, you do you.  You're gonna be upset more than you should, but hey, live your beliefs---you've more or less said you're going to suffer umbrage anyway (so why are you asking for our opinions?).

For the record, I worked several late shifts at convenience stores when I was younger, and I dealt with the dregs of society and drunken yuppies on a nightly basis, a couple of incidents actually resulting in me physically escorting unwanted patrons from the premises and in one instance an actual brawl. I also hauled sheetrock with several of the hardest individuals I have even known, both ex-cons, who had, shall we say, interesting opinions about life.  So, again, I am a little hesitant to feel too sorry for you having to deal with people sporting tattoos. 

But this was an interesting question:

I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.

I suppose I would speak to the student privately and ask them to at least cover the tattoos while in class, and I would probably speak to my chair and inform them that I have a potentially problematic situation in the classroom.  However, I am not sure I would do much else.  Our current culture wars have almost anyone who has a really repugnant viewpoint screaming about their First Amendment rights----and they are probably right.  I am not sure that there is anything that CAN be done about a kid with offensive tattoos.

[AmLitHist]

I leave it to all of ye to ask yourselves, sincerely, what you would do if confronted in a classroom with a 'student' with a swastika tattooed on his neck, and 'f*ck you' (asterisk mine) on his hands.

I've encountered these tats, and others far more offensive, Every. Single. Semester. since I've been teaching (i.e., Fall 1997). My approach is to respectfully ask all students on the first day of class to dress and present themselves in a professional manner, including dressing and speaking in ways so as not to offend or to embarrass themselves or others, and to cover up any ink that others might find offensive. (The ones with those tats know exactly who they are and what the tats in question are and why they offend; it's often why they got them in the first place.)

My general rule is: if you wouldn't want your granny or your 4-year-old niece or nephew to see or hear it, we don't need to see or hear it either, so cover it up or knock it off. I've yet to have any student give me more than token resistance to that or continue to display such things in my classrooms. (Baseball caps, sweatshirts, and such can cover a lot; students also do a pretty good job of calling each other out when needed.) If problems persist, I deal with them calmly, one-on-one: I hear the student out, explain my position, and while we can agree to disagree, the classroom is not the place to get into a war of wills. 

There are so many more important things to focus on in this life than somebody's tattoos, clothes, or how they address me. If I go through life looking for things to be offended by, I'll never run out of grievances, but what a miserable way to live.

[little bongo]

Well, I won't go as far as to "feel sorry" for K16--pretty sure he wouldn't want that, anyway. And my personal feelings about how I'm addressed (or not addressed) don't jibe with his. However, I think I understand what he will and won't put up with--his situation (roughly speaking--K16 can correct me if I'm off), that is, preparing for an academic life, succeeding in obtaining terminal degrees and other necessary certifications, and then winding up in a place where you have to say "Pardon me [sir or ma'am]" to the customer with the questionable symbols shaved into their hair and clean up the drug paraphernalia, blood, and vomit from the rest rooms... that really could have happened to any of us. (Could still happen to me sometime after I turn 60 and possibly get retrenched or decommissioned or made redundant.) It's a situation you have to meet and accept in one way or another, and K16 has found his way. "Miserable" or not, I think we all search for some sort of meaning and dignity in our lot. Sometimes that's a simple as a "Mr." or a "Dr." when a younger person addresses us.

[Wahoo Redux]

preparing for an academic life, succeeding in obtaining terminal degrees and other necessary certifications, and then winding up in a place where you have to say "Pardon me [sir or ma'am]".... It's a situation you have to meet and accept in one way or another, and K16 has found his way. "Miserable" or not, I think we all search for some sort of meaning and dignity in our lot.

This is me, man, the boat I find myself in.  I'm dreading starting over and have the excuse that I am doing final edits on some creative writing and working as I post on a book contract for a monograph----but soon enough I can no longer use these as excuses.

I get my friend K16. 

I do, however, gently suggest that the world will never meet our ideological beliefs, that is the route to madness.