do I have to refuse to use first names because my manager won’t?

by Alison Green on June 26, 2024

A reader writes:

I just started with a new organization three months ago. I was hired to lead a newly-formed team. In case it matters, I am the team leader but not the supervisor — there is a vacant supervisor position, and my boss has made it clear she would like me to fill that role, but there are rigid eligibility requirements that I won’t meet for several more months.

I greatly admire my new boss and love working with her. However, she insists on calling everyone by a gendered title plus surname (Ms. Smith, Mr. Jones, etc.). She applies this to every single person, regardless of age or position, and if someone requests that she use their first name she outright refuses (her exact words are “it’s not gonna happen”). She is from an older generation and from the south, so this may be a cultural thing. I will generally address a stranger this way in the workplace, but as soon as they ask me to use their first name, of course I comply.

I don’t feel too strongly, but if I had the choice I’d prefer to be called by my first name, especially by my peers and the team members under me. I have privately told my team that they are welcome to do so and asked how they would like to be addressed. Most said they do not care either way, but two are adamant that they want to be called by their first names. Some others in the organization, including directors far above me, have insisted on first names as well. When out of earshot of my boss, I address people however they are most comfortable.

However, I’m not sure if it’s a bad idea to use first names in front of her. We speak frequently throughout the day, and she usually joins my daily meeting with the team. When she is present, I find myself using her method of address for everyone because I don’t want her to think I lack decorum, especially as a leader. On the other hand, I had a team member reiterate to me again today that she would prefer her first name, and I want to respect her wishes (and everyone’s). Can I freely use first names in front of my boss, or will she find this inappropriate?

As a general rule, you should use the names people have asked you to call them, including in front of your boss. And using Ms. Smith/Mr. Jones will come across as antiquated and stuffy in most workplaces (with a small handful of exceptions where it’s still the norm).

But in reality, you may need to adapt this to fit your boss. I don’t know if she’s going to find your use of first names inappropriate or not — you’d have to ask her that — but it’s certainly possible that she might.

If you’re worried, why not talk to her about it? You could say, “I know you prefer to address people by titles and surnames. I want to respect what people ask me to call them, so I prefer to follow their lead and use their first names if they prefer it. But I wanted to make sure you don’t feel strongly about how I handle that.”

There’s a pretty good chance you’ll hear that she’s well aware that most people around her use first names, and this is simply her own practice and not a mandate for others. But if it is going to bother her, it’s better that you know that. And if that turns out to be the case, you can tell people that up-front so they know where you’re coming from — “I prefer first names too, but Jane prefers we address people more formally, and I’m choosing not to go against that when she’s in the conversation.”

But honestly, I’d probably skip the conversation with your boss and just address people the way they’ve requested. It’s unlikely she’ll be shocked; she’s got to be aware that most people’s norms have evolved on this.

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  1. juliebulie*

    “It’s not gonna happen?” I thought we were all supposed to be respecting each person’s preference for how we would address them. OP’s wonderful boss won’t do this. Where is HR??

    Incidentally, I am from an “older generation” and have lived in the South, and this really isn’t a thing there.

    1. That Crazy Cat Lady*

      Agree. I can understand defaulting to Mr. Jones/Ms. Smith at first just out of politeness, but once someone explicitly says what they want to be called, why refuse?

      I don’t believe it’s out of respect, because blatantly ignoring someone’s wishes about what they want to be called is inherently disrespectful.

      1. Czhorat*

        “I’m so polite that I’m going to ignore your explicit wishes on how you want to be addressed”.

        1. Dewey*

          I had this happen when I was on a team where three out of four of us had the same, very common name. We all asked to go by our last names and our grand boss refused because it was rude. There would be meetings where she would say things like, “Jennifer (not the real name), please send the files to Jennifer.” Like, who are you talking about??!

          1. Lady_Lessa*

            We have that problem at work, and all 3 men have the same last initial as well. (one of them is the son of the oldest) So we often separate them by First name’s initial and numbers. It’s been long enough that we often don’t need to add the number because they work in different areas.

            1. WheresMyPen*

              We have many people with the same surname in my job and we just call them First Name Last Name. So, ‘did you hear back from Jane Jones?’ ‘I bumped into Jane Brown the other day’. Their first name is one syllable which makes it a bit less cumbersome but if you need to clarify with a surname it’s easy enough.

          2. Bossy*

            I can never figure out why some people dig in on trite issues like this to the point of appearing to be an ignoramus. Very odd.

            2. Mongrel*

              Sometimes it’s performative, petulant compliance either after an HR chat or having enough self-awareness to know they’re in the wrong but couching it as playing safe.

              “Well all I called them was and apparently that’s wrong now. Going forward I’m doing just to make sure I don’t get in trouble again”

              Not saying that’s the case here though.

          3. GhostGirl*

            I once worked at a place where there were THREE Michael Andersons, and it wasn’t a large company. Two were in sales, and one of those went by Mike so he was easy but we still called him “Mike Anderson” and never just Mike. The other one was in Client Development. You could USUALLY tell by the conversation “Michael Anderson needs a PO approved” vs “Michael Anderson needs this data for a client presentation” but it still got REALLY confusing. If someone had insisted that all three needed to be called “Mister Anderson,” not only would the Matrix jokes have gotten completely out of hand, but all hell would have broken loose.

          4. Mackenna*

            At an old job, there were three secretaries named Penny. One was a junior, so she was Little Penny. One was an older woman who had been working as a secretary for many years, so she was Big Penny, despite being quite petite. We weren’t going to call her Old Penny, because she was actually very active and young at heart and came across as years younger than her chronological age, and also because she thought it was hilarious. Then, when a third secretary named Penny was hired who was between the two in age, naturally she became Middle Penny. Everyone, right up to the managing partner, referred to them this way, including the three Pennys.

            2. Great Frogs of Literature*

              There’s an older woman at my church with my same first name, and we are Frog the Elder and Frog the Younger, like ancient greek philosophers. (By her choice, to be clear — I would not default to calling someone “the elder” on my own recognizance, even though she’s in her eighties.) I think it’s delightful.

            3. Orora*

              When I worked as an Operations Manager at a start-up, the accountant, the admin assistant and I all had the same first and middle names (We were all some shade of redhead, too). We decided on numbers. I was Orora #1 because I’d been there the longest. Orora #2 was the accountant with the second longest tenure and Orora #3 was the AA with the shortest tenure.

              We also had a couple of developers named Jason who we also assigned numbers to, in the same way.

            4. Lellow*

              My daughter calls me and my wife Big Mummy and Tiny Mummy. She started this spontaneously two years ago. She’s 4 soon and it’s well and truly stuck, despite some efforts on our part!

              (I’m Big Mummy.)

          5. JustaTech*

            When I was in high school my class had maybe 20 Elizabeths (girls’ school, so no guys).
            There was one Liz, one Beth, and everyone else went by their last name, except poor Elizabeth Levine, who had to go by her whole name because there was a teacher Ms (Mrs?) Levine, and so we couldn’t just be shouting “What’s up Levine?” down the hallway.

            When one of my friends who had been an Elizabeth transitioned and introduced their new first name I literally said “wait, you have a first name?” because we’d all only called them by their last name for decades.

          6. Salsa Your Face*

            I worked at a small company with an octogenarian CEO. When a second “Jennifer” was hired, he refused to accept the presence of two Jennifers and sought to rename one. The second Jennifer’s last name was Brown, so he declared that she would be henceforth be called “Brownie.” You’ve never really lived until you’ve referred to a fully grown, professional woman as a snack food.

            (While “Jennifer” is a made up first name, her last name really was Brown, and he really did continue to call her Brownie and insist that everyone else do the same.)

        2. iglwif*

          I had a friend when I was a kid whose mom did this! My mom — like most moms I knew back then — preferred my friends to call her by her first name. This one friend kept on calling her “Mrs Lastname” (especially awkward because my parents were divorced by then and she had started going by Ms.), and I finally discovered it was because her mom had read her the riot act about addressing adults by their first names.

          Outside of school and the doctor/dentist, I knew zero adults whom I addressed as “Mrs/Ms/Mr Lastname”. Some of them were Auntie or Uncle Firstname, but most were just Firstname. It would’ve seemed incredibly odd to me call someone I’d known since birth “Mrs Lastname,” and incredibly rude to address them in a way they had explicitly asked me not to.

          1. Silver Robin*

            I grew up calling all adults (school, parents of friends, coaches, etc) by [honorofic]+[last name]. In fact, though my mother has accepted that such formality does not make sense now that we are all adults, she still feels weird about me calling her friends by their first names (even if that is how they introduced themselves) and definitely feels weird about my friends calling her by her first name (but she knows it would come across as too stuffy to say otherwise, and she barely sees them anyway).

            This definitely is partially cultural. My parents grew up in Russia where there were three levels. In descending order of formality:
            1. [honorific]+[lastname]: for strangers, or folks who require utmost social respect
            2. [first name]+[patronymic]: teachers, in-laws, bosses, anyone you see regularly but with whom you are not quite friends
            3. [first name]: friends, family; nicknames will also show up here

            The US collapses categories 2 and 3 into [first name]. I remember my dad joking about how awkward it was to end up in a rare meeting with his CEO and call him “Jim”. Like what???

            Honestly, I kind of like the Russian system. Not in a “going to die on this hill” way, but I think having a middle ground is useful.

            1. Database Developer Dude*

              I wonder how we’d handle nonstandard genders in my taekwondo school. I’ll have to talk to the Grand Master about it.

              Color belts who are kids are addressed by first name. Adult color belts are Mr./Ms. Firstname, unless they object, then Mr./Ms. Lastname. Black belts (1st, 2nd degree) are Mr./Ms. Lastname for adults, Mr./Ms. Firstname for kids. 3rd degrees are Instructor Lastname, and 4th and above are Master Lastname, irrespective of gender. 6th is Senior Master, 7th and above is Grand Master

              1. Orv*

                There are a few honorific options for people with nonbinary genders. I personally prefer Mx, partly because most people seem to find it very intuitive (it’s pronounced “Mix”.)

            2. iglwif*

              Yes, I agree that having a middle ground can be helpful! I think “Auntie” and “Uncle” play a similar role in some cultures.

              I just find it weird when people insist it’s somehow MORE polite to use a form of address someone has asked them not to use.

              1. Callmesisi*

                I love the middle ground that many Quaker schools use – students call teachers “Teacher + First Name.” It’s not gendered and I think it strikes the right balance in terms of power dynamics. (Equality is a big tenant of Quakerism.) Trying to think how that could transfer into a workplace, particularly one where people have clunky titles that you wouldn’t want to tack in front of a first name!

            3. RussianInTexas*

              It gets even more complicated than that in Russian, due to the middle names, which are always patronymics, and are mandatory for the formal greeting, people in authority, teachers, etc, and the formal/informal “you”.

              1. Silver Robin*

                yeah I did not include in/formal you because we were talking honorifics, but by my understanding you would only really use informal you with family and friends, colleagues of the same level… trying to remember how my father talks to his mother in law and I think it is вы but he might also be purposely keeping some distance XD

            4. Simona*

              I haven’t heard the first 1 used in Russia in sometime. We called our professors number 2 always.

              1. irritable vowel*

                Yes, the first one seems more Soviet – Tovarish Sakharov, etc. I’m curious if Russians now use Gospodin/Gospodina in the same way.

                1. Silver Robin*

                  my parents used gospodin/a exceedingly rarely, but I also basically never met anyone they were not already friends with.

                  From the college classes I took, it definitely seemed to be reserved only for the most formal situations or if you did not yet know the patronymic

                2. irritable vowel*

                  Thanks, Silver Robin! I haven’t studied Russian since the late 80s/early 90s, when things were obviously in flux. I remember we were advised to address professors and medical doctors as Doktor/a rather than Gospodin/a – but it sounds like the latter is now more common if you don’t know the patronymic. (I know there is Vrach also, but I can’t remember the distinction of when to use that.)

            5. Rocket Raccoon*

              I’m in the Western US and we have three levels.

              Honorific + Lastname for strangers, elders, leaders (Mrs. Johnson, Coach Hamill)

              Honorific + Firstname as a default and for aquaintences, for people older than you, and kids use this for most adults (Miss Jenny, Coach Robert, Uncle Don)

              Firstname for people your own age or if they ask for this address

          2. With an A not an E*

            My mother was a stickler for honorific and last name. She was scandalized when I started calling a friend’s mom Mrs Last Inititial. Friend’s mom wanted to be called by her first name, mom insisted it was rude, so I thought that I had come up with a good compromise.

            I am a teacher now. When kids graduate, I don’t need to be Ms. Last Name, but I’m sure I will be for most of them.

            1. Prof*

              I am in my 40’s and have a PhD and teach…and I still call my high schools teachers I’m in touch with Mr or Mrs X…it still feels weird not to ha

              1. anon here*

                I’ve stayed in touch with some law school professors (I’m ~15 years out) and only in the last five years or so have I been able to bring myself to stop calling them “Prof. Doe” in emails–after they explicitly ask me to use their first names. I consider myself mostly non-hierarchical but WOW do I find this difficult.

              2. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

                One of my grade school teachers moved into my neighborhood and you bet your sweet bippy I still called her Mrs. Lastname, even though no one else in the neighborhood did and I was in my 30’s. I was very happy to report to her all of my geography knowledge from her classes stuck and I got to use it daily when I was in truck brokerage.

              3. Glen*

                it’s interesting as a recent (mature aged) graduate from an Australian university, because all of our instructors absolutely went by their first names to students. We do use honorific + surname in school, though. I assume that’s still the case right up until high school but it was a long time ago for me and I don’t know anyone in high school any more! (niblings are too young)

                1. Irish Teacher.*

                  Similar in Ireland. We use “Sir” and “Miss” or “Miss/Mr./Mrs. Last Name” in primary and secondary school (although some primary schools seem to be moving to first names) but in college (university in Australia) or the workplace, it’s first names.

                  I didn’t call my lecturers anything at all my first year at college because it felt awkward using their first names.

                  Actually, we have a little bit of the issue in the letter when it comes to priests. A lot of priests prefer to be Father First Name, but they still tend to get addressed and spoken of as Father Last Name.

                2. JustaTech*

                  At my small tech undergrad in SoCal, in the early 00’s we called all our professors “Prof Lastname” with two exceptions, Dr Lastname (don’t know why he wanted Dr and not Professor, but OK) and Prof Firstname (who went by his first name because no one could pronounce his last name).

                  Amongst ourselves we just dropped the Honorific when talking about the professors, so they were all “Lastname”.
                  When I went back for my 18 year reunion I felt like I was pushing a boulder up a hill to call my advisor by his first name, which he clearly thought was very funny.

            2. Bookmark*

              My mother insisted that I address all my wedding invitations to her friends in the formal Mr./Dr. and Mrs./Dr. Man’sFirstName Lastname. Even for friends of hers where I barely know the husband and am close with and use first names in person with the wife. I got married in my 30s. I am looking forward to some of these rules that are just for weird appearances sake going the way of the dodo.

              1. coffee*

                I absolutely cannot wait for the “invite Mrs Man’s-FirstName-Lastname” to die. Honestly thought that was a practical joke the first time I heard it.

                1. Rocket Raccoon*

                  My sister in law and I use that form to address each other as an inside joke. We have definitely upset people, even people who like honorifics.

              2. JustaTech*

                Oh, that!
                For our wedding invites my husband and I asked around and the only ones we wrote like that were to people we knew would care, mostly our grandmothers.

                It feels very weird to address a letter to someone I know as well as my own grandmother as “Mrs Man Who Died Before I Was Born”.

              3. Kara*

                Feel free to stop using that one right now. Afaik it’s generally considered old-fashioned at best and offensive at worst. I’ve only received one wedding invitation ever that used Mr and Mrs HubbyFirstName HubbyLastName, and given the bride’s mother i strongly suspect that she was strong-armed into it like you were.

              4. Dr. QT*

                If both parties are Dr. and have the same last name it’s supposed to be The Doctors Lastname. If they have different last names then they are Dr. Firstname Lastname and Dr. Firstname Lastname. You get to keep your own first name if you’re a Dr., even if you’re married.

          3. Really?*

            And in my sister’s southern town, the usual convention was Miss or Ms Firstname, when children were addressing adults they knew well. Will admit when I started many years ago, at least one company I worked for, everyone defaulted to Ms. Last name. As in “hi, this is miss smith from the widget department, could you please” etc. …but that was decades ago.

            1. Accidental Manager*

              My son at the age of 4 went to a preschool where the teacher was “Miss Elaine”.
              We are pretty casual, so Aunt or Uncle was really the only honorifics he was familiar with at that point. We were about 4 months into the school year when I realized he thought his teacher’s name was Missy Lane. He never questioned the use of both first and last name, just accepted it. Still makes me chuckle.

              1. kicking-k*

                This reminds me of when my son thought a friend of ours was called Danny Owl (Danielle). He was a little disappointed to find she wasn’t. Kids just have no conception of whether something sounds likely or not… and in this wide world, there’s probably a Missy Lane somewhere. And a Danny Howell, if not Owl.

                1. oh helllll yeah I'm anon for this one*

                  dude there is straight up a Daniel Howell. He’s probably most known for being in that first wave of Youtubers (before anyone knew you could make money off it and everyone was just posting the silliest, offbeat fun) and still does that to a more limited extent. I followed him in adolescence, and it’s a bit funny now to see him as a person, not just a funny-video-generator. As I grew into adulthood and was more empowered to grapple with my mental health, and what do you know, Dan was dealing with the same/similar things as I was at the same time as I was, only now that he’s older, he’s reached a point where he’s comfortable enough to speak out about it publicly. So I had a (good) weird feeling that his non-Youtube work turned out to be so personally relevant for me.

              2. sequitur*

                I had a swimming teacher called Elaine when I was about four years old and I straight-up thought her name was Lane for a long time. And my sister thought her childhood guitar teacher’s name was Ben Sherman because he always wore shirts from that brand with the brand name embroidered above the pocket.

                1. Dogmomma*

                  when i was a kid, Brachs chocolate advertised on TV. When the announcer for different shows in between shows said ” brought to you by” ___insert company name. I heard (& still here today occasionally) ” Brach to you by”, like the candy is pronounced, lol

          4. Simona*

            Me too. I am 43 and absolutely I addressed all adults as Mr and Ms/Mrs and my mom would absolutely correct kids who called her by first name. She’d say “I’m not your buddy.” Then I get to the south and adults are called Mr FirsName etc but I think now everyone goes by first names with kids and its hard to be the outlier. I do think its weird to refer to my kids’ friends parents by first name when talking to them and I often just resort to “Caleb’s dad.” or whatever.

            But amongst other adults it would be SO weird to call people by last names.

            1. Rocket Raccoon*

              I always called my friends’ parents “Mr. Chris’ Dad” or “Mrs. Jenny’s Mom” just to hedge my bets.

              1. JustaTech*

                I had a friend in middle school who’s parents were both doctors, and her mom went by her own last name. But of course none of us kids remembered her mom’s last name, just that she wasn’t Dr Friend’s Last Name (that was her dad) and sure absolutely was not Mrs Friend’s Last Name, so we all just called her Friend’s Mom.
                Except that we called that friend by a nickname, so her mom was Nickname’s Mom, which also clearly annoyed her.

                Even before I had kids I decided that I would be fine with their friend’s calling me Mrs Kid’s Last Name, even though that isn’t my name at all, because it’s a lot to ask kids to remember a different name.

        4. Nah*

          It feels especially insidious if anyone in the company is trans/GNC/pretty much any form of queer (I read that specifically because as someone non-binary, English doesn’t really have a traditional agreed upon Respectful Title for non-men/non-women – I personally use Mx. but I know many others that don’t want to be addressed with any title, or use a different one entirely. Heck, I know several butch/gnc women that exclusively want to be referred to by Mr, and then several with fluid identities besides that. She could be respecting these wishes, but with how inflexible boss comes across as in the letter and my own experience with these attitudes, it feels like the infuriating nonsense I face from a person that does the ‘Singular They Is Incorrect You Are A Woman And A She Now Shut Up’ folks, and/or the ‘Well *Legally* Your Name Is X So I Will Exclusively Refer To You As Such Because That Is Your Correct, REAL Name’)

          1. Nah*

            *and yes, technically Dr. is a gender neutral title, but shockingly enough I don’t think I should be required to get a doctorate in order to not get misgendered at an office.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        I think it’s sometimes done by people who are absolutely convinced they know what is best, to the point that they honestly believe that anybody who disagrees “doesn’t know what’s best for them.”

        That and people who are more concerned about how they look than the impact on others. I suspect she thinks that it makes her sound more professional or something if she uses surnames or that a bystander might think she’s been too familiar if they overhear her using a first name and she is more concerned about looking like she is being polite than actually being polite.

        The same kind of logic that has people trying to matchmake for people who have made it clear they are happy being single or who push people to attend parties or other events they have no interest in or try to insist on people taking food or drinks they don’t want.

        A combination of “I want to be seen to do the right thing and I care more about that than about how what I do effects people” and “I alone know best. They’ll thank me later.” Sometimes, I think they feel “they are only saying I can call them their first name, to be nice” or “oh dear, they don’t feel worthy of being addressed ‘respectfully’. I must do it more to ‘get them used to it’.”

        I think often the people who do stuff like this have a habit of either seeing other people as children who need to be told what is best for them or else just…not seeing things from other people’s perspective at all.

        I find it a very irritating mindset and it’s very hard to break because they are so sure they are doing the right thing.

    2. Barm Brack*

      Yeah, I’ve worked with many older, very southern people (think people whose last nanes are street names in Charleston, SC) and absolutely no one did this.

    3. D*

      As a “Mx.” I would be so annoyed all the time at hearing myself misgendered every single time someone talks to me. I’m generally closeted about that at work, and my first name is still my first name regardless and isn’t inherently gendering me wrong!

      1. Orange You Glad*

        This is where my thoughts went right away. What about people that don’t use gendered pronouns?

        I would probably reach a point with this person that if they insisted on calling me Ms. LastName, I’d stop responding. Sorry, there’s no Ms. LastName here, my name is FirstName.

          1. old curmudgeon*

            “Mrs. LastName was my mother-in-law, and she’s been dead for three decades, so it’s kinda creepy you’re calling me by her name.”

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        This was my first thought. I don’t know if there are any non-binary people at the workplace or not, but the insistence on gendered titles is a pretty clear signal they wouldn’t be respected. This is about insisting on conforming to Traditional Ways, not about politeness.

        1. Chirpy*

          I mean, I guess it would depend on whether “Mx. Jones” would be allowed as an option, but that only works if one is out at work.

          Either way, this is such an out-of-touch, impolite way to treat people who have asked you to call them by a particular name.

          1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            I really doubt someone this Traditional would accept Mx but would be willing to be surprised. At least she’s caught up with the 1970s and is using Ms!

            1. Jamjari*

              oh, I might faint from laughing if I were called Miss. I haven’t been a Miss since I was six. Now, if you want to called me Spinster LastName, but all means, fill your boots.

              1. SheLooksFamiliar*

                ‘Fill your boots’? I don’t know you, but I really, REALLY like you.

                Also: you can call me Ms. the first time, then plain old SheLooksFamiliar forever after. Refusal to call me what I asked you to will result in a talkin’ to.

        2. coffee*

          As a cis woman it’s already a minefield on whether you get Miss, Ms, Mrs, and how you feel about each term/whether sexism is going to come into it. For non-binary people it’s a straight-up clusterfuck.

      3. Memily*

        I like Mx, but in formal situations I’m never sure how to pronounce it! (Not like the one in the letter, like think announcing the newly married couple at a wedding or something where the title would be socially expected.) I don’t want to make a fool of myself if it comes up, lol.

        Is it M-eks or mmks or something else?

        2. Maple*

          And that’s exactly why I don’t go by Mx. It just sounds silly! Part of that is the exorsexism (anti non-binary) of it all, but even if it WAS normalized, it’s just… silly!

          That, and I’m not a “mix” of anything. My gender is “No”, not “both man/woman”, so Mx feels like it wouldn’t apply to me anyway.

          1. D*

            I’m also “no” and not “both” but I have never ever interpreted Mx that way, myself.

          2. Orv*

            I never thought of it that way. I generally saw the X as a placeholder, just like the one that adorns my driver’s license instead of an M or F.

          3. Chirpy*

            To be honest, I really wish Mx was more commonly used. I’m female, but very much of the opinion of why should my gender and marital status be in any way important to how I’m addressed. (But since it isn’t, and people assume things if you do go by Mx, I don’t.)

          4. Nah*

            As an agender individual, I’m not understanding why you think it means “both” versus just an expression of not-Mr/Ms? also feels kinda… not great to call a title that brings many of us gender euphoria “just silly”. Like I know you didn’t mean it like that but it still stings when we’re already getting so much pushback from society already for existing as our true selves to be told the title we’ve chosen to represent us is childish and means something completely different. :\

          5. Aardvark*

            But it doesn’t mean ‘mix’. The x is just to signify that r, s or rs aren’t appropriate letters for that person.

            I have exclusively heard it pronounced more as Mks without a distinct vowel, so I would be surprised if a there were many people interpreting it as meaning a mix.

          6. Cathie from Canada*

            I’m 75 and I’m thrilled we now have Mx as an option.
            I remember 40 years ago when people were complaining about Ms – “but what does it MEAN???” “But how do you PRONOUNCE it???” “But its SO AWKWARD!!! I’ll never get used to it!” – and within a few years nobody could remember why it seemed so difficult. Mx will be the same before long.

      4. iglwif*

        I’m a Ms., but “what about people who are neither a Ms. nor a Mr.” was my first thought too! It’s 2024.

        1. Lea*

          My work is full of doctors so half my brain power goes into trying to remember who is Dr x, vs Mr/ms x.

          But we only use these formally, chit chatting with coworkers is different

          1. Evan Þ*

            Reminds me of one blogger I follow who posted once, “I’ve achieved every non-binary person’s dream – I’ve completed my doctorate!”

      5. AcademiaCat*

        Yeah, as another Mx. I would have wound up having a conversation about titles that likely would have landed us both in front of HR. She might not know it but this boss is fishing for trouble. Refer to people how they want to be referred.

      6. Quoth the Raven*

        I’m genderfluid, so whether it would be right or not to address me as Mr./Ms./Mrs./Mx. changes by the day! I extend a lot of grace to people when they greet my like that because it’s not inherently apparent when I’m being misgendered and because some days I really can’t be bothered to say “It’s Mr./Ms./Mrs./Mx. today”, but someone insisting on calling me by a title when I’m asking to use my name(s) would rub me the wrong way really fast.

      7. Nova5155*

        There are also people who hate their last names for none-of-your-businees reasons (most often abuse or trauma by parent or relative). It is still their legal name, but they don’t want to hear it spoken out loud if they don’t have to. It’s incredibly disrespectful to address someone in a way they don’t want, even more so if they are adamant about it, unless their alternative is completely inappropriate (but I struggle to come up with what that would be).

      8. kicking-k*

        That would be very awkward. I hope you can avoid having to deal with this.

        I’m just a person who is very uncomfortable with titles (none has ever felt right), and I also have a double last name, so any version of Title Surname gets unwieldy. My first name is fine. Oe even my first initial!

      9. Tradd*

        Just curious – how do you pronounce Mx? This is the first time I’ve seen it so I’m really not sure.

        1. Anonychick*

          It’s generally pronounced “mix” (like “would you like to mix the cookie dough?”).

      10. Atomic Tangerine*

        I jumped into the comments just to say the same thing. Both of my kids (older teens) are gender nonconforming and the insistence on using gendered honorifics would feel like harassment to them. They deal with enough everyday misgendering as it is. While we’re at it, can we also ditch sir and ma’am?

    4. Pipa*

      It might be a regional/cultural thing, tbh. One of my bosses a few jobs back (in north/central Florida) had this same same habit, though she was much more willing to bend when people said “Just call xx”

        1. Dandylions*

          Grew up in NC and this was common, although ironically it was usually Miss First name.

          Typically people in indirect authority showing their respect to you would say it. So an elementary school teacher would probably say this to you when you were no longer in their grade, and particularly nice principals would say it.

          If you were in trouble it was just “First name!” and when I was in their class it was just “First name”.

          1. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

            That’s a different convention, though. The Miss/Mrs./Mr./Dr. FirstName thing is for kids addressing adults, or adults addressing much older/respected adults, OR for adults talking about other adults/older kids around young kids. It’s primarily performative for kids, not for adult-to-adult conversations (exception being the adults addressing much older/respected adults).

            1. Annie E. Mouse*

              This is true, but also a problem at work. I work in a large company in the South where we have a lot of folks who have been with the company 25+ years but also hire a lot of entry level people right out of college. I had a woman on my team who was in her mid-60s and would train a lot of the new hires. Some of them took to calling her Ms. “Mary”. She joked that she knew it was time to retire when they started calling Ms. instead of just Mary, but she was obviously a little hurt to feel like they were treating her like a little old lady.

            2. Nashville Ex-Pat*

              That’s exactly my experience too. My friend’s kids would call me Miss First Name. I didn’t come up in the office.

            3. mlem*

              I got a lot of “Miss Firstname” and “Ms Firstname” when I had to visit the Gulf Coast earlier this year, from customer service workers and bankers and such. The speakers were often close to my age or older; it was “respect”, sure, but not not particularly deferential.

          2. Lydia*

            This is what I’ve most often run into it within BIPOC led organizations, and I figured it had roots in the south. But even in the south, it sounds like things are changing.

          3. H.Regalis*

            Weirdly, I’ve had coworkers at multiple different jobs call me Ms. FirstName. Like just me, everyone else was FirstName. At my kindergarten (in the north) we called all of the teachers Ms. FirstName: Ms. Rita, Ms. Jackie, Ms. Lugene, etc.

        2. Overit*

          Same. When I moved to Florida, it took a while to get used to being called, “Miss Overit”
          But I was never called, “Miss/Mrs/Ms. Surname”.
          Have lived in 2 different regions in Florida and never experienced it anywhere.

    5. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Yeah, who knows how much of this to ascribe to culture in general, as opposed to the way her particular family did it, or some other experience she had growing up or early in her career. Maybe she just has trouble learning and remembering first names!

      The “it’s not gonna happen” indicates she’s stubborn about this, regardless of any underlying reason, so if I were OP I wouldn’t waste any energy trying to change her, or even understand her.

      This is really a read-the-room situation; pay close attention to what people higher in the hierarchy do when they are with her.

      Also, does she use the same formula when talking about people in the third person? “I want you to find out from Mr. Green who’s going to cover his clients while he’s on vacation – Mr. Pink or Ms. Brown”

      1. LW*

        Yes, it is definitely at all times – third-party or directly!

        The only people higher than her that we have any interaction with are her boss and our division’s director, who are called Ms. and Dr. (respectively) by absolutely everyone. Some managers who are higher than me but still under her (supervisors for different teams) have been VERY insistent on first names

        2. Lily Rowan*

          Oh, that changes things for me — if the bosses are always called Ms./Dr., I can see where she wants to show everyone else the same level of respect. It doesn’t change my own feeling that you should call people what they want to be called, but I can see some additional logic there (in addition to the cultural piece) that it’s showing that the bosses aren’t way up there and we’re way down here — we’re all on a level. It’s just interesting that the level is more formal, when almost all US workplaces today are all on the informal level. (I’ve been in the workforce 30 years and have never called a boss Ms/Mr/Dr/etc)

    6. Meg*

      I used to work for a summer camp in New England and the director would insist on calling me “Miss Meg” and having the campers do the same. I politely requested that I preferred just “Meg” and she told me it was disrespectful to do so. On her part it seemed a bit like Southern mannerism cosplay and I never knew why she was so hung up on it. Now as a married woman I have to repeatedly tell people that I absolutely will not answer to “Mrs. John Smith” despite having some women throw tantrums about “proper etiquette” (also that I’m a Doctor if you want to use a title; they never miss that with men).

      1. Hanani*

        I had a private grump to myself when a distant relative sent a wedding invite to me addressed to Miss Firstname Lastname – just use my name and drop the Miss! And if you’re so insistent on being “formal”, it’s actually Dr.

          1. Prof*

            that’s how you’d be called in Germany actually…well, if I recall correctly it’s Frau Doctor so the Miss part first….

        2. iglwif*

          I am fine with “Ms Firstname Lastname” on something as formal as a wedding invitation, but I definitely have a private grump when my oldest SIL sends me a birthday card addressed to “Mrs [Spouse’s Initial] Lastname.”

          1. Quill*

            People still do that? I thought addressing a woman by her husband’s first name died out in the 60’s.

            1. iglwif*

              Very, very few people still do this. My SIL is (a) almost 30 years older than me and (b) stuck in the 1960s in a number of ways, of which this is one.

            2. Lexie*

              My mother in law still does the Mrs. Husband’s name thing on stuff she sends me. She has also made checks out to Mr&Mrs. Husbands Name.

            3. Antigone Funn*

              It should have, but people who consider “traditional” to be their number-one virtue still do it.

            4. Evan Þ*

              My high school, fifteenish years ago, sent letters to my parents as “Dr. and Mrs. Dadsname”. Not quite the same thing since the letters were to both of them, but on the same spectrum.

              1. DrAndMr*

                My mild mannered mother used to have a fit when they did this. Because it should have been Dr. and Mr. – hmmm, interesting question: do you use her first name in that situation. They used to do it with Lastname so I’m not sure.

                My dad finally got his doctorate when I was 12 (my mom got hers while she was pregnant with me) and it became Drs. Lastname which seemed to be a lot easier for people to use.

            5. Bookmark*

              My mom insisted I address her friends this way on my wedding invitations (in this decade). I barely know my mom’s friend’s husbands and call her friends by first name in person! It is baffling, and I hate it.

          2. hobbydragon*

            We get mail/invites from his family addressed to Mr and Mrs Husband’s last name and I always joke I hope his other wife has a nice time at the party. (My husband and I have different last names but have kids with his – I grew up with a hyphenated last name, mom-dad, and always thought it was funny when my friends called my parents by my combined last name, but especially when they called my dad Mr mom-dad). And when I briefly was a substitute teacher while trying to figure out my next career move I went by Ms last initial because I feel silly getting called by my last name.

            1. hobbydragon*

              Oh the kicker is our joint account WILL NOT accept checks that do not have both our full names on them. Our state income tax refund cut off after my first name and they were balking at letting me deposit it. I switched us to direct deposit the next spring.

      2. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

        Oh, “those people”. They claim to care about etiquette, but if that were true they would courteously call you what you want to be called. It has never been proper etiquette to ignore someone’s direct request for their preferred form of address.

      3. br_612*

        I recently responded to a door to door salesman who asked if I was “Mrs. 612” by saying “Actually it’s Doctor” and then just staring at him though the awkward silence while he tried to figure out what to do from there (before telling him I’m not interested in solar panels and gathering my mail and going inside while he kept talking at me).

        Like you clearly have a list of homeowners in the area, mine is the only name on that list for this house, why are you assuming I’m married? If he had said Ms or ma’am I wouldn’t have done it but the Mrs. just really irked me.

        1. The Space Pope*

          I once had a caller from our national energy provider (who we were customers of) who addressed me as Mrs Husbandsurname. I never took my husband’s surname and my name was also on the account – he was calling my mobile, ffs! It was also one of those upselling calls, but it actually pissed me off so much that I was considering switching providers.

      4. Jojo*

        I’ve had the Miss Jojo thing happen in New England, and now in my office in Pennsylvania, and it doesn’t bother me. (I’m not being misgendered, but I realize that is the case for some people, so I think it should go away.) I do have a hyphenated last name, and everyone at work politely ignores how cumbersome it is and calls me Jojo. My husband’s extended family still send mail to me addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Husband’s full name, and I hate it. I also hate that they assume I’m going to manage my husbands relationships, gift giving, whatever. Thanks, but Nope!

        So I guess my input is the same as D above. Call people what they asked to be called, you will be respecting their choice of name, and much less likely to misgender someone. I mean, that’s a win/win.

        1. Elsewise*

          I remember seeing relatives doing that to my parents when I was a kid, and my mom was hopping mad about it. I also remember some relatives not sending us mail for a while.

      5. Chirpy*

        This, I had a coworker (from California!) who made her kids call me “Miss Chirpy” and I really hated it. It hits such a weird spot of informal/formal, and absolutely no one around here (Midwest) ever uses it. It really just felt like it was reinforcing some kind of hierarchy where I was not respected enough to use Ms Last Name, but still acknowledging that I was a (young) adult?

        1. Quill*

          I think there are some churches that insist on all women older than 15 or 16 being addressed as Miss Firstname. Had a friend growing up whose mom insisted on being known as Miss Tangerina, which definitely clashed with the expectation of Ms Lastname that was for friends parents, teachers, coaches, etc.

          1. New Jack Karyn*

            This reminds me of Austen novels, in which the eldest unmarried daughter is Miss Cotesworth-Hay, and younger girls are Miss Marion or whatever. (I’m not sure if the younger ones are Miss automatically, or only upon their coming-out season.)

            1. anon here*

              Also visible in Bridgerton, where Eloise was Miss Eloise and is now Miss Bridgerton (since the previous Miss Bridgerton became a duchess)!

      6. Lydia*

        I kept my last name when I got married, and it kind of drives me bonkers when people refer to me as Mrs. LastName. A) That’s not even correct no matter what, and B) even if I had changed my last name, I STILL wouldn’t go by Mrs. HusbandLastName.

        1. JustaTech*

          Yes!
          Mrs LastName is my mother. Mrs Husband’s Last Name is my mother-in-law, though I’ll accept it from children and like, hotel staff.
          My name is Ms Last Name, though very technically it’s Master Last Name and hoo boy aren’t we glad that no one actually applies the title from a master’s degree?

          But let’s be real, I’m JustaTech and that’s what I want my coworkers to call me.

      7. MissesPookie*

        Yep- Bostonian here- My son called MY adult friends Mr/Miss/Mx first name until he was about 8. I was known to his friend just by my first name and thy would laugh hysterically if a new friend came to the house and addressed me as ‘Mrs.KIDSlastname’.

    7. Freenowandforever*

      I’m not from the South, but I’m about to turn 70, so that probably makes me a member of the “older generation” in the OP’e eyes. I find my self wondering if her boss is 94.

      1. Lydia*

        Haha! Truly, people forget these norms started changing 50 years ago and THAT was in the 70s. All these folk have had plenty of time to get on board.

    8. H.Regalis*

      I’m wondering myself just how old of a generation OP’s boss is from. Is she a vampire?

      1. juliebulie*

        I’m sure even vampires don’t care to be misgendered or otherwise addressed incorrectly!

      2. iglwif*

        My mother is in her 80s and is very, very firmly in Camp Call People What They Want To Be Called. It’s hard to believe this is an age thing.

        1. Lydia*

          My aunt understood that in the 1980s. Her neighbor insisted her kids call my aunt Mrs. MarriedName and that was never my aunt’s preference. When she told the neighbor she wanted to be called FirstName, the neighbor told her she wanted her kids to be respectful. My aunt, to me, “Wouldn’t it be more respectful to call me what I prefer to be called?”

          1. iglwif*

            I was also a child in the 1980s and heard variations on this conversation more than once!

    9. RIP Pillowfort*

      I live in the deep South and honestly the weird part to me is using the surname. Being called Ms./Mr. First Name is really, really common in my area. Like half my emails have me being Miss or Ms. RIP.

      But if I said I had a problem with it, the polite thing to do is always stop. That’s incredibly rude not to call someone what they want.

      1. LW*

        She does use “Ms./Mr. [first name]” interchangeably or by request! As someone not from the south, that was COMPLETELY new to me :)

      2. MCMonkeybean*

        Interesting, I feel like I have only ever encountered that in the context of children referring to a teacher or like my Girl Scout Leader. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an adult refer to another adult that way!

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          Same! With the exception of talking to a student about another teacher. “Go ask Ms. NewJack–she has lots of pencils.”

    10. Falling Diphthong*

      There’s a nuance to that rule that you can err more formal/polite than the person has requested. So you don’t have to call someone “Dogfood” if they tell you they like that, or “Special Boo.” The coworkers of the person with a master don’t have to call him “Master” even though their coworker wanted that to be the rule in her office.

      1. Nina*

        Okay, but if someone’s actual name is Special Boo? I get that you’re reading it as a cutesy endearment, but there are real people whose real legal names are things like Precious and Special and Lovely.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          If the real name is Precious, or King, or Phuc, then you need to use it. “People getting weird about given names (or established nicknames used across the board)” is a separate question from “People getting weird about how someone wants them to use a special, intimate pet name to reflect their special, intimate relationship.”

    11. LW*

      May I shock you? We are HR.

      I agree it’s weird and I’m very uncomfortable addressing someone in a way they have asked me not to! I’m new to the organization of course, but my best guess as to why this is tolerated is that this is considered a lovable quirk because she’s an older lady who’s been here forever and is otherwise excellent at her job.

      1. Juicebox Hero*

        I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been reading this blog for too long or just my baked-in cynicism, but I’m not shocked at all XD

      2. Database Developer Dude*

        Agree totally with you, LW.

        I was the IT chief of a Finance unit in the Army Reserve, and caught hell from colleagues for at least attempting to pronounce our Thai soldier’s name correctly, addressing him as Specialist Srivanchaoran instead of the dumb nickname they came up with for him.

      3. Sparkles McFadden*

        Not shocking. Not even mildly surprising.

        I’d just call people what they want to be called and not worry about your boss’ judgment regarding your “lack of decorum.” If she’s the type of person who is going to judge you for not following her (weird) example, she might have some other secret judgmental ideas you don’t know about. Don’t make yourself (and everybody else) uncomfortable.

        You could talk to her about it, but I don’t think there’s much to be gained from that. Just be good at your job and let her judge you on your work. If she’s good at her job, that’s what she’s going to do.

        1. Manic Pixie HR Girl*

          ACTUALLY, adding –

          Reading LW’s additional comments (including being former military), I wonder if it is her way of enforcing the bright line that HR is Not Your Friend (not in the usual negative context, but rather that it is difficult for HR to be friends with individuals in other verticals for obvious reasons). This is a very … heavy handed way of doing it, but I could see that being her way to enforce that particular boundary.

    12. PhyllisB*

      I’m a born and bred Southerner, and when I was coming up, this was very much the way things were done. All children addressed elders as Mr. Mrs. or Miss Lastname. If it was a close family friend, you were allowed to say Miss (or Mr.) Firstname, or Uncle or Aunt for someone really close to the family. When I first started in the work world, you definitely addressed your superiors by their title and a lot of bosses addressed their employees this way. In some instances, coworkers even did this, but most just used first names. In everyday encounters most people used titles I even called the man who pumped my gas Mr. Jones. (That doesn’t mean gas station employees don’t deserve respect, it’s just to illustrate how pervasive this was.)
      I was floored the first time a manager introduced themselves to me by their first name. Thankfully, it’s more relaxed now, but I still prefer to go formal until invited to use first names. I don’t always do that because people think you’re unbelievably stuffy.
      I get a lot of service people still addressing me as Mrs. B and no matter how many times I tell them to call me Phyllis they just won’t. A lot of times I get “My mother would kill me if I did that.” Since I’m probably the age of most of their grandmothers, I just let it go. At church you get Miss Firstname of Mr. Firstname a lot. That’s what living in the Deep South is like.
      Now, having said all that, if someone expresses a preference for first names, I always respect that, but I’ll never be able to drop my Ma’ams and Sirs. :-)

      1. NotJane*

        I’m also a born and bred Southerner and agree that it’s hard to get your brain to make that switch when it was drilled into you for so many years! I’m a fully grown, middle-aged woman but when I ran into one of my high school teachers in a social setting recently, I automatically said “Hi, Ms. Lastname!” even though I know her first name and she’s probably less that 10 years older than me.

      2. *Makes eye contact* Excuse me…*

        I moved from California to southern Louisiana as a child, and my step dad drilled the expectation of formality into me as we moved. But even with his dire warnings, I was unprepared for just how seriously it was taken. When someone older or in authority asked you to do something, you didn’t say “okay,” you said “yes ma’am/sir.” My new school did not tolerate perceived disrespect of any sort, and was perfectly fine with corporal punishment. I was terrified! So being formal with names became a matter of survival for me. Try getting rid of *that* survival instinct! One wrong person in authority could overhear, and boom, you’re in deep trouble. Or you get too comfortable with informality, and it comes back to bite you one day. My favorite technique was to just avoid addressing people at all: make eye contact and say “Excuse me” and then there’s no faux pas.

        1. JustaTech*

          On avoiding addressing people: it took my now mother in law more than a year to notice that I went out of my way to ever have to refer to her by name because I was *massively* uncomfortable calling her by her first name, but I also knew she was very unhappy if I called her Mrs Lastname. So I just didn’t use any name for her at all for at least a year (not hard to do when you’re speaking to someone directly).

          It wasn’t until one of her friends asked her what I called her that she realized I didn’t call her anything at all! Then I was properly caught and just had to get over calling her by her first name.

          (She did understand that I was doing it out of ingrained politeness to not call your elders by their first name, and not because I didn’t like her or something.)

    15. Inkognyto*

      First names for people are too ‘personal’ and I find when someone doesn’t want to use them especially someone managing another person they feel if they do it’ll break seem less professional and have told me so. That’s their issue it isn’t mine.

      if the name is Bingo the Clown, I’ll call them Bingo if that’s what they want.

    16. Cat Tree*

      Yeah, some people will bristle and huff and insist that they were just trying to be nice or polite.

      You know what’s polite? Respecting people’s stated request.

    17. Not on board*

      Not to mention the gendered aspect of doing this – we don’t have a non-gendered term to replace Mr, Mrs, Ms, or Miss. If someone is non-binary it would be discriminatory to insist on referring to them as Mr, Ms, etc. I suppose you could use just their last name, like calling Sam Hicks just Hicks, but then it wouldn’t be any different than just calling them Sam. This person is a whackadoo.

    18. Petty Crocker*

      Yeah, Mx. Bossypants is wildly disrespectful here. Hopefully she’s on the tippy tappy edge of retirement and losing her balance.

    19. Star Trek Nutcase*

      Worked my whole life in the south (well Florida), and at my last job people used Miss/Mr first name for everyone below C suite. I hated it. IMO it was a stupid way to pretend we weren’t just lowly employees (how we were generally treated). I pushed back by simply using only first name. Over time, more dropped the Miss/Mr. IME lots of stuff we do is because “we’ve always done it that way” and just needs a quiet refusal.

      In OP’s case, because senior people above use first names, I’d just use first. If her manager isn’t bad, there’ll be no pushback. If manager does hold it against her, it’s a clue manager’s judgment is questionable and a dark pink flag. But I think a big part of OP’s concern is she wants the vacant promotion.

      1. Eater of Hotdish*

        Yeah, I taught (non-tenure-track) at an institution of higher learning where it was traditional to call all faculty members Professor Lastname. It felt awesome for a little while—hi, I’m Professor Hotdish! I have arrived!—but quickly grew stale as I realized that the students had no clue how precarious some of our situations were. To them we were all Professor—the tenured people who had been there for decades and the adjunct praying that there will be a job, any job, once the school year is over.

      1. Orv*

        Now all I can think of is the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketch where Burt Reynolds is refusing to respond to Alex Trebek because he’s filled out his nametag to say “Turd Fergeson” and Alex won’t say it. ;)

      2. allathian*

        The problem with that is that title + last name *is* your name, even if it’s not the way you prefer to be addressed at work. Or at least your last name is, lots of people don’t identify with any gendered title.

        1. amoeba*

          Yeah, as a German, that debate is pretty interesting to read! We still use last names quite a lot here – together with the formal “Sie” address – and actually it’s a whole thing about who is allowed to offer to whom to change to first names, etc. (Senior person has to offer, typically!) Now, in most workplaces in my field, it’s first names only nowadays, but certainly nobody would consider it impolite to use last names – maybe a little stiff or whatever, but not wrong.

        2. Cookie Monster*

          I think Lexie was pretty clearly implying she wouldn’t reply because it wasn’t her *first* name, which is reasonable.

    2. mayflower*

      Yeah, I would be very wound up about this if it were my boss. I just can’t imagine the audacity it takes to look someone in the eye and say that you won’t call them what they asked to be called! I’m so curious to know if anyone else does this at OP’s org or just the boss.

    3. NothingIsLittle*

      Honestly, I can think of nothing that would make me angrier than someone calling me Ms. LastName instead of my first name. I already hate gendered titles (and prefer sir to ma’am, though it bothers me less), but to use them after I’ve explicitly asked you not to? Yeah, I would make that a problem.

      To have a coworker ignore my preference because their boss does… If they explained to me it was because their boss was forcing them to I’d probably get over it, but if I didn’t know that I’d feel very uncomfortable.

      1. NotBatman*

        YESSSS. Like, I understand that there are different regional norms. But if someone says “call me Jane” and you continue to say “Ms. Smith”, that’s rude.

        Also: it’s a brave new world, and assuming whether someone is “Mr.” or “Ms.” can be rude in its own right. More and more “Mx.”es are coming out of the closet every year, and it’s becoming ever more common for women to wear suits and men to wear makeup.

    4. DontMaamMe*

      Agreed. And the opposite also. I used to have a coworker who insisted on addressing me as “ma’am.” Not my first or last name, just “ma’am.” I asked him multiple times to stop and he wouldn’t, saying it was just habit. You can control what comes out of your mouth. It felt passive aggressive.

  3. FG*

    As an “older” person from / in the South, I can tell you that’s not the reason. We might use “ma’am” and “sir” more that some folks, but I have never in my long life run across this directive except when it’s about kids addressing elders. It may be common in her community, but it’s not a general Southernism.

    1. Clisby*

      Yeah, I’m 70, born in the South, and lived all but about 9 years there. This seems odd to me, unless maybe this is a really conservative law firm, or bank, or something like that. My father was in management for years (he was plant engineer at a paper mill) and nobody called him anything but his first name. Whatever’s going on with her, I doubt being from the South has anything to do with it.

    2. Almost Empty Nester*

      yep…’ma’am’ and ‘sir’ is for sure a thing here, but strictly addressing someone using their gendered titles is not and has never been a common thing here. We use those titles for our children to call other adults, such as “Miss Susie” or “Mr. Steven”, but notice that we’re not asking the kids to use their last names, but rather their first. Your boss is a pompous ass.

    3. A Cat named Brian*

      Is she a principal in a school? Are you the lead teacher for an area?Because that’s what we’re required to do regardless of position. I was an ED and everyone, from custodial staff to superintendent was either Ms, Mr, Mrs or Dr. No exceptions….

  4. Czhorat*

    The world has changed dramatically in recent years towards less formality; for a non-work example my friends’ parents were “Mr and Mrs” to me when I was a kid; now my kids’ friends call me by my first name. My boss does, my clients do. Nobody calls me Mr.

    It’s a bit like the fading of formal dress; norms have shifted and aren’t likely to shift back. We’re not going to start wearing neckties, calling our bosses “Mr Boss” or “Sir”.

    I’m all for it because it feels more friendly, more open, and more egalitarian. If you address everyone by their first name then everyone feels equal.

    1. Rainy Saturday*

      LoL NO. Our daughter once broached the subject of what her boyfriend/fiance should call me. I said, “Your Highness” is fine. It was Dr Saturday or Mrs Saturday until after the wedding. Now its Rainy.

      1. Dawn*

        I think, in that event, I would probably solve the problem by declining to address you at all.

        1. Alienor*

          My MIL wanted me to call her Mom, and I wasn’t comfortable with that, but first names
          didn’t feel right either.We’re now in year 29 of me not addressing her by any name at all (except occasionally “Grandma” if my daughter is there).

          1. Jill Swinburne*

            That was my mum and her MIL! (Why would I call you ‘mum’? I already have one of my own.) Eventually she ran out of creative ways to say ‘you’ and just started calling her by her first name and nobody batted an eye, but I think it must have taken a good 20 years.

        2. Siege*

          That’s what I did when invited to use names I wasn’t comfortable with (I have a mother, you’re not her, I’m not calling you Mom.) While we should call people what they want, we should also ask people to call us things that don’t over or under assume intimacy.

          Turns out, you can get very far in life by looking at the person you’re addressing and not calling them Mom.

          1. Lisanthus*

            *nods at Siege* Indeed.

            My ex-MIL pushed “Well, I’m YOUR MOM NOW CALL ME MOM and not my first name or Miz [one of the multiple last names she used depending on stage of life]” on all her DILs once an engagement was announced/a wedding happened.

            None of the DILs were happy about her presumption of intimacy. Nor were her own children, who felt displaced and complained to all the DILs about it. And to their mother, who waved her children off with “Don’t be silly and jealous.”

            For me, she added an extra-special smarmy-voiced “Since your mother’s DEAD now I’M your MOTHER. Isn’t that NICE?”

            Holy boundary-stomping, Batman!

            I politely said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel right presuming that way since you’re not my mother and it feels rude to me.”

            She pushed about “WHYYYYY, I’m YOUR MOTHER, you POOR GIRL you don’t HAVE A MOTHER I’m YOUR MOTHER NOW” until I was forced to call her out.

            “Yes, my mother died when I was in college. But SHE is still MY mother. YOU are YOUR SON’S mother. I am NOT going to call you ‘Mom’ because that erases MY mother. What would you like me to call you instead?”

            Yeah, that didn’t go over well. Fortunately she’s an ex-MIL.

            Team “Call People What They Want to be Called” here.

            1. Laura LL*

              This is so weird to me! I wouldn’t want my boyfriend to call my parents mom and dad and I sure as heck wouldn’t feel comfortable calling his mom and dad. I have parents already!

        3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          Yep, my former in-laws wanted me to call them mom and dad, and while I have had friend-parents in the past that I did call mom and dad, I did not like my in-laws that much. So I didn’t call them anything for the seven and a half years I was involved with their son.

        4. Rainy Saturday*

          Humor to daughter followed by not first name (like all out kids’ friends), then first name after wedding. I don’t see the problem.

      2. Jay (no, the other one)*

        Since I’m Dr. Mylastname, not Dr. Hislastname, insisting on my title in social situations has never appealed to me. I don’t use his name and I won’t respond to it because I won’t realize anyone is talking to me. My kid’s friends call me by my first name – when she was in middle school they called us Mama and Papa Hislastname which was so adorable I enjoyed it.

      3. Antilles*

        I would have chuckled at the “Your Highness” comment, assumed you were kidding, and definitely gone with calling you Rainy from then on.
        And if you later clarified, I’d go with Dawn’s strategy of “declining to address you by name at all”, mixed with telling my friends (and probably GF herself) about your weird name power-plays.

        1. Rainy Saturday*

          The Your Highness was in jest, told only to my daughter. Once they got married, we were on a first name basis.

      4. Anonymel*

        My DIL calls me Mom. My son calls her folks by their first names. She prefers to spend time here, with us, including holidays. Says our family is warmer and more welcoming. I bet I can guess where your Daughter and SIL prefer to spend their time. Why would you not want to be as welcoming as possible to the person your daughter loves and chose? That’s baffling to me.

        2. Rainy Saturday*

          geez people are piling on. Your Highness was a joke, to my daughter only. None of our kids friends called us by our first names. Was it not established that people should be called what they want to be called,? After they were married, it was first names. We get along great. They spend far more time with us that with his family!

          1. anon here*

            I don’t think anyone is saying your future-SIL should have called you Rainy once you said you preferred he didn’t (pre-wedding), I think folks are slightly amazed to find a person more like LW’s boss than like LW in the wilds of the AAM comments and want to know the thought process direct from the inside.

      5. iglwif*

        I feel like if my MIL z”l had treated me that way, she wouldn’t have seen much of me (or of her son, either).

        My bio father z”l was not a good parent and I call my stepdad by his first name because that’s what he prefers. I call my own mom “Mommy.” My MIL and FIL z”l were “Mum” and “Dad” — they were extremely kind and welcoming to me, and that’s what the other daughters- and sons-in-law called them, too.

      6. SamStarr*

        I attended a K-12 public school in the early 2000s where all students were told to address teachers by their first names and I thought it was wonderful. The only downside is that it made me assume that that’s how all kids address all adults so I definitely got some side eyes from grown ups I met who clearly did not like being called “Gary” by an 8 year old.

        1. Quoth the Raven*

          I call my parents by their first names a lot of their time. A lot of people seem to think it’s the epitome of disrespect, even with my parents saying “Those are our names, and we’re okay with Quoth the Raven using them.”

      7. Rainy Saturday*

        OK folks, can we quit piling on? We didn’t have any of our kids friends address us by our first names. No boyfriends, either. The “Your Highness” was a joke. He didn’t call us by our first names (NOTE – that’s what we preferred – isn’t everyone here saying you should be called what you prefer??) until AFTER they were married. Sheesh.

        1. orsen*

          Given the letter at the top of this page, I find it entirely predictable that people thought your “Your Highness” request was serious and not a joke.

        2. Dawn*

          Everyone has the right to determine what they prefer to be called, yes, but it’s…. hmm. How to phrase this.

          Rude at best to decline to treat your daughter’s fiancé like a member of the family – or even that they refer to you more formally than you expect of the general public – until after they are married.

          There is a subtle but important difference between “this is what I would like to be called for personal reasons” and “this is what I would like to be called because of an uncomfortably-applied power dynamic.”

          You’re welcome to make the demand, and you’re well within your rights to have it respected, but a parent-in-law who kept me at arm’s lengthy by demanding I refer to them formally until the actual date of marriage would not receive my best regard. The fact that they’re dating your daughter does not preclude you treating them with the same respect that you, presumably, would treat any other adult in your life.

          1. CommanderBanana*

            Yeah, this reminds me of those people who refuse to let their kids sleep in the same room when they visit, even if the kids have been living together for years, have a kid, etc. and are for all intents and purposes married but just chose not to get legally married.

            If I were dating someone seriously enough that we were getting married and their parent wanted to be referred to as Mrs. Lastname, I would absolutely do that. I would also think it was an…..interesting choice. And I’d probably ask to be called Ms. Mymaidenlastname as well.

          2. orsen*

            I also think it’s something like…well, Rainy Saturday keeps insisting it was a joke, presumably because to them, it seems like such an outrageous request that of course it’s a joke/not serious. But as far as future in-laws snubbing new additions goes, holding off until after the wedding to embrace the son-in-law familiarly isn’t particularly outrageous. It’s certainly not warm, but it’s unfortunately so common for in-laws/future in-laws to engage in much worse behavior. Asking to be addressed as “Your Highness” actually doesn’t read as all that extreme.

            Rainy Saturday, you know that you’re not the kind of person who really would expect your son-in-law to address you like that, but everyone else here in the comments doesn’t know that. We’re not your friends, we don’t know you personally, and even if you’re a regular commenter, lots of people here aren’t regular commenters who might recognize you. That’s why people interpreted your story at face value—it has no context.

    2. Justin*

      I agree with the exception of younger relatives (my wife’s family is all first names and no, I’m Uncle Justin and our son does this too) and professional titles if requested, as I, as a Black guy, sadly it gives me more respect to be Dr. Mylastname

      1. Jay (no, the other one)*

        Same as a woman. A white male colleague of mine once told me he has all his patients call him by his first name. I can’t do that. It’s only the last year or so that people accurately identify me as the doctor without defaulting to nurse/aide/therapist/flower delivery person

        1. Southern Prof*

          I was going to wonder whether the boss in the post is Black. I am a white, Southern woman and the one boss I had who did this was a Black woman. She didn’t go as far as “never going to happen”; though, I’m not sure anyone ever pushed back. Several of my colleagues were also Black, and I always assumed it was cultural because of how hard fought honorifics are/were for African Americans in the South. I called her (my boss) by honorific last name and my colleagues by whatever they introduced themselves as. I encouraged anyone to call me by my first name but didn’t push, and the boss called us all by honorific last name. It was never A THING except in my head where I hoped that my Black colleagues did not feel disrespected when I called them by their first names. I tended to revert to honorifics for anyone who addressed me with one.

    3. Ansteve*

      I would be so tempted to require the boss to refer to me as Sergeant (USAA does it to me every time I call them and I hate it) just to mess with him. If he wants to be formal than he can return it

      1. H3llifIknow*

        …curious. Why do you hate it? It’s a rank you earned and USAA is specifically for military service members and their eligible family members. They’re trying to honor your service and show you respect and you … hate it? That’s a heck of a sword to choose to fall on.

        1. Dawn*

          I haven’t had this experience myself, but I have been assured by veterans that they do not all regard their time in the armed forces warmly, or appreciate being reminded of it.

          1. Chirpy*

            Yeah, I don’t know what rank my uncle was, but I can tell you he hated being drafted into Vietnam and the PTSD it caused, and isn’t a fan of being reminded of that.

        2. Database Developer Dude*

          I, too, have USAA, and they address me as ‘Chief Warrant Officer Dude’. I don’t really think anything of it…..BUT!!!!!

          In my civilian job, I work on a military base where the commander makes all the gate guards salute officers. When they scan my civilian contractor ID card, they can see my record as an Army Reserve CW4….and salute me there. THAT is what I hate. I don’t mix roles. If I tried to exercise any military authority in my civilian workplace I’d be shut down with a quickness.

        3. Lydia*

          It’s really not, though. Everyone feels differently about their service, and since USAA serves both active military, retired, and their families, they shouldn’t assume any more than the rest of us should.

        4. Ansteve*

          It’s more of the formality and hearing it from nonservice members nearly 10 years after I got out. It’s made weirder because even the VA doesn’t call me by my rank. It’s either Mr last name or first and last

        5. Irish Teacher.*

          Honestly, this is kind of why we default to what people prefer. I suspect the LW’s boss would say something similar about the people who want her to call them by their first names. “I’m trying to show you respect and you…hate it? That’s a heck of a sword to choose to fall on.”

          And I could definitely imagine somebody who was pushed into the army by say an older relative or who joined the army and then found themself sent to a war they had ethical objections to would not find it respectful to have their service honoured.

          I imagine that would feel a bit like being addressed as “Mrs Ex-husband’s name” after a divorce.

      2. The Editor-in-Chief*

        I *loved* being a sergeant (not so much the job, but the lovely gender-neutral form of address) and even though I’ve been out for ages, I DO miss having the option.
        I’m misgendered on a nearly daily basis, often twice in a row, when people say “Good morning sir! Er…ma’am!” and I have to refrain from saying “Neither, but …thanks.”

    4. H.Regalis*

      My dad grew up in the 1940s. His friends all called his mom, “[Dad’s first name] [Dad’s last name]’s mother.” XD

      1. anon here*

        By very young children, I have sometimes been called “[Daughter’s name]’s Mom.”

        1. allathian*

          Me too, “son’s name’s mom” in my case.

          But I’m in Finland, and calling anyone anything other than by their first name feels odd to me. Kids call their teachers by their first names and use informal address, except in language classes when the language being taught is more formal in this regard. So my son’s German teacher is Frau Schmid, but his homeroom teacher is Anne. Yes, they’re the same person.

          Yet, oddly enough teachers here generally seem to be more respected than in many places where formal address is the norm.

          That said, we’re also very good at having long conversations with people without saying their names even once. In a 1:1 conversation in Finnish, there’s absolutely no need to say the other person’s name at any point, not even when you first greet them, although most people will say it then. If more people are involved, you say the name if you’re emphasizing that a statement is directed at them.

        2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          I still get called Kid’s Name Mom by my kid’s friends sometimes, and he’s 11.

    5. Petty_Boop*

      My kid’s friends called us “Mr. and Mrs. B” or for the ones we were especially close to “Mama B.” One called me “Petty” once and we both stopped for a second and were like “nope, too weird,” and she went back to “Mama B.”

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      If you address everyone by their first name then everyone feels equal.
      There are very few offices where first names between those with very different amounts of power make everyone feel equal.

      1. Silver Robin*

        I definitely understand the idea behind “talk to everyone like they are equal to reinforce that everyone *should be* equal” as a societal value of sorts. Very democratic, and I do not necessarily disagree with the sentiment.

        But it is also entirely ludicrous to pretend power dynamics do not exist. Calling the Executive Director by her first name does not make the power she wields over my work and my livelihood any less. I almost would prefer to call her by something more formal to make that power dynamic explicit.

        It feels like going about it backwards. Formality is a reflection of power dynamics. Reduce the power dynamics, and the formality goes away (I do think this has happened, to some extent, but deeply unevenly). But if you instead just eliminate the formality, it feels kind of hollow because the power dynamics are still very much there.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Like corporate ice breakers where people need to reveal their deepest scars. Because when you’re close to people, and trust them, you do that–so if we do that first, then the trust will follow.

        2. allathian*

          Everyone using first names implies equality as human beings. It’s not the same as organizational authority. Your boss or the CEO aren’t inherently more valuable as humans just because they control your livelihood.

          1. Silver Robin*

            yeah but like, our equality as human beings does not do anything about her from firing me or setting my salary. To use a more extreme example, the fact that Bezos and the order pickers might refer to each other by first names does not prevent Bezos from treating them as wage slaves. He sees them as peons and less human, because that is the only way a person can justify treating other people the way he treats his employees. First name basis does not do anything to mitigate that.

            From a different angle, our language norms do not differentiate between class/social hierarchy a la “nobles are literally more noble and valuable than serfs” and “this person is in charge of the org”. That is why it feels weird to be on a first name basis with the big boss; we are not friends and we are not peers at work, why are we talking as if we were equals?

            If I were, say, in a hobby group with the big boss, then first name would feel a lot less weird. Sure the work context exists, but that can be set aside (to an extent) in a knitting club or whatever because now we are actually interacting as peers.

            If we had a way to distinguish “respect for your authority” vs “respect for your humanity”, that would solve the weird, for me. But we do not have that so it gets tangled and odd.

        3. Irish Teacher.*

          I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Like yeah, the boss does have power over you. Even in my job where my boss has limited power to fire me, he could still do stuff like giving me an awkward timetable, giving me the most difficult classes, etc and his power to do that is far more significant than his power to tell me “I’d prefer to be called Mr. Surname,” if he wished to do so.

          But on the other hand, I dothink there is some symbolism and it can imply level of approachability. Calling our lecturers by their first names was a sort of reminder that they are not teachers, that we are not kids who need to defer to them as adult authority. Yes, they still had the power to fail us which was far more significant really than any power any of our teachers had (as our exams that matter in school are corrected anonymously and externally), but…the relationship was different. We didn’t need to ask their permission to use the bathroom or bring in a note to them if we missed a class because we were sick and their role was as an expert on a particular topic, not an overall authority figure and I think using their first names did highlight that it’s no longer a situation where if somebody is smoking in the street and a lecturer passes, they have to hide the cigarette.

          I also think it can feel harder to argue with somebody while using their surname. “I don’t think your idea will work, Mr. Greene” feels different from “I don’t think your idea will work, John.”

          1. Silver Robin*

            I always used Professor _____ unless told otherwise or it was a TA in undergrad.

            Once I got to grad school they actually made a point of telling us during orientation that we were colleagues with our professors because at that point we all had experience in the fields we were studying. That made sense to me and was helpful as far as setting expectations.

            I hear the note about approachability. It is a good one. And it is not like I walk around insisting on honorific+last name. I really wish we had a middle ground though, because even if it is meant to signal approachability, the power differential is still at play. I would argue more at work than school; in school you can retake a class – no such luck at a job that fired you.

            I am not sure if first names make approachability easier though. That feels like a personality thing. There are people I am cautious about and people I am easy with; that has been the case regardless of forms of address. I personally try to be super approachable at work because it is part of my job. Warm and friendly Ms. Robin works just as well as Silver. I think?

    7. ScheuylerSeestra*

      I’m pretty open about people calling me by my first name, but my exception is children.

      Either Ms. ScheuylerSeestra or Ms. My last name. Never my first name alone.

      I’m an elder millennial and it’s my one old school societal rule. Kids are not my peers. To this day I still call my parents friends Mr or Ms Last name.

  5. Pastor Petty Labelle*

    “Not gonna happen” after being asked to use a first name is even rude too. Also not formal.

    If your boss is otherwise a reasonable person chalk it up to a quirk. You can just shrug it off as guess it takes all kind. As long as she isn’t misgendering anyone. But if there are other issues, you might want to consider whether you want the supervisor’s position or not.

    1. Michelle Smith*

      A great way not to misgender me (and the reason I prefer people use my first name without an honorific) is to use my first name. I doubt the boss even knows if she is misgendering someone because some people, like me, won’t correct you and say I actually use “Mx.” because I don’t want to invite more discrimination.

      1. English is not my mother tongue*

        How do you pronounce Mx.?
        (I have trouble enough with the difference between Mrs. and Ms. I think I’ve pronounced Mrs. like Ms. ever since I learned the word and several years before Ms. was common.)

        1. SGK*

          I think there’s a few different pronunciations, but the one I’ve heard sounds like “mix.”

      2. Nah*

        And even worse is she’s the head of HR! There’s no way almost any queer worker is gonna address this directly, since HR isn’t exactly likely to protect you if HR is the one going after you!

        1. NotBatman*

          That is such a good point. There really are whole layers of rudeness baked into this issue.

    2. Long Time Reader - First Time Commenter*

      This is the major issue I see with her insistence. If she has a subordinate who doesn’t identify as a “Mr.” or a “Ms.” is she still going to insist on her “polite” practice. She’ll be creating a hostile work environment (and probably bumping into legal problems, depending on the state.)

      1. Ansteve*

        At my large company. If we used Mr./Ms./Mrs Lastname thing would get very messy. Example; Grant Mrs. Hernandez access to the share drive! Which one? We have 15 spread throughout the company 3 are in one department alone.

      2. LW*

        I believe she would use Mx if asked – she also uses job titles with some people or drops the title entirely (using just the last name) upon request

        1. Silver Robin*

          So it is *just* not calling people by their first name? Like the only thing she refuses to do is use a given name? That is so weird; sorry you have to navigate that

          1. LW*

            Exactly, although she happily uses first names if there is a title (like she will say “Ms. Cindy” for example). Basically if it’s a PM named Cindy Smith, she would be okay with calling her Ms. Smith, PM Smith, Smith, or Ms. Cindy… the only thing she won’t agree to is plain “Cindy.”

            1. Paris Geller*

              how odd. Not that you can really do anything about it, but again, I just have to say: so. freakin. weird.

  6. Pottery Yarn*

    If you feel wary about broaching the subject with your boss, I would look at how other people address their colleagues when she is around, particularly those who work under her. If they’re all using the Stuffy Method™, that would be a pretty good indicator that she expects others to follow her lead, but if they utilize first names, it’s probably fine to do so yourself.

  7. Scottish Teapot*

    Is there someone above your boss you can speak to about this. Surely this isn’t the norm to address people as such in this day and age? What about non-binary staff or even those who don’t feel comfortable with this?

    1. Emily Byrd Starr*

      My understanding is that the title for non-binary people is “Mx” pronounced Mix. But if they want to be called by their first name, then call them by their first name.

  8. LynnP*

    My first manager at a professional job always used Ms or Mrs Last Name for women when speaking to someone outside the organization. Many of the people he was interacting with expected to be called Mr Last Name but referred to women as girls and by their first names and he just wasn’t having it.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      I did wonder if her insistence grew out of something like that. If we call everyone by the most formal version, it helps to interrupt that tendency.

  9. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

    This is so weird. When I was in 7th and 8th grade in the early 90’s, I had a teacher who insisted we call him, “Sir,” instead of Mr. Lastname. He got me to do it twice- once in 7th grade and once in 8th grade. It was so wildly out of the norm- no teacher ever (grade school, high school, college) expected Sir or Ma’am, just Mr./Mrs./Dr. Lastname. Since I’ve been in the working world in the early 00’s, I’ve called everyone by their first name, unless explicitly directed not to or due to some very vaulted status. No boss I’ve worked with on a daily basis has ever had a policy about Mr. or Mrs. and certainly not to their underlings.

    1. Good Enough For Government Work*

      In British schools, all teachers are referred to as ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’ (unless calling them Ms. Jones or Mr. Banerjee or whatever). Always have been.

      There weren’t any out nonbinary teachers when I was in school; I wonder what the kids are using now?

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        My kid had a nonbinary teacher and referred to them as “Mx B” (pronounced “mix”). Generally students at his school address teachers as (title) Lastname (or Last Initial if the teacher requested that) rather than Sir or Miss so it was very easy. There’s always just “Teacher” as a form of address in that case for everyone, I suppose.

        1. Petty_Boop*

          …and don’t forget the occasional poor kid who slips into the accidental “Mom”.

          2. Bethany*

            My dad is a teacher, and he always loved it when kids accidentally called him dad. He said it made him feel like he had created a teaching environment where the kid felt safe and happy.

      2. Petty_Boop*

        Your first sentence immediately made me think of one of my favorite movies: To Sir with Love. :)

      3. Adam*

        Not anymore. My kids’ school switched a couple years ago to a system of calling every teacher by their first name (from a system where each teacher got to choose what they were called).

      4. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        My children are in schools in England and at secondary school (11-16) not only do they address the teachers as Sir/Miss, they also refer to them in the same way (which I think may be regional).

        So where I would expect to hear “Mr Smith gave us too much homework” they say “Sir gave us too much homework” – it’s deeply weird.

        They don’t use sir/miss at primary school (4-11), just Mr Surname (etc) and every adult in the building including janitors, cooks, visiting parents, etc is addressed similarly. The second I step into the school I become Mrs Klinkerhoffen even to children who happily call me Sally in the street, at sports practice, etc.

        At nursery/preschool (0-5) adults are addressed by their first names without a title. Mr/Miss/Ms Firstname is basically unknown here.

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          Wow, people really do learn code-switching super young! It’s probably something they don’t even think about doing, it’s just automatic. So cool!

        2. Ladybird*

          Yes, I find this super weird.
          When I was at school, it was Sir/Ma’am/Miss (Miss regardless of marital status to be honest, Ma’am and Miss were interchangeable) when addressing the teacher but we always used their names if referring to them. (and again, it was Miss as default)

          The trend of saying ‘Sir did this, Miss did that’ is weird!

          Aa a teacher myself, I am glad I work at a school that is first names only. If only we could get the students to remember!

        3. Ichigo*

          When I was in school (Sthn Ontario, Catholic system) we addressed teachers and staff as Mr/Mrs/Ms Lastname from JK to grade 8, but then magically switched to Sir/Miss in high school. Nobody told us to do this, it just happened. And, interestingly, it only seems to be a thing with people I know who went to Catholic school … ?

      5. Big Pig*

        Not in Scotland, that is a distinctly English education system trait. We use Mr/Mrs/Ms/Mx Lastname up here and we hate that people from England assume that it is always the same. Britain as an island contains 3 countries and 2 separate education systems, don’t speak for both if you only know one.

  10. Programmer Dude*

    This situation begs the use of non-gendered titles.
    – Comrade Smith
    – Compatriot Jones
    – Commandant Garcia
    (I have no idea why all my examples are “C”s, just worked out that way)

    3. H.Regalis*

      I am on the hunt for non-gendered titles! Mx, anything. I want to be respectful and not just call people, “hey you.” If anyone has any more, please comment them.

      1. The Editor-in-Chief*

        Someone on Tumblr noted that since Mr./Mrs./Ms. are all forms ultimately from Latin *magister*, the correct gender-neutral should be Mg., pronounced *mage*, with which I wholeheartedly concur.

        1. Genevieve*

          Oooh as a cis person who has no horse in this race and will happily use whatever someone asks me to – I kinda really hope this catches on.

          1. Zeus*

            You can start using it if you want! Titles don’t have to reflect your gender necessarily. They do by convention, but it’s not actually a law :D

        3. NothingIsLittle*

          As fun as that seems, as an agender person do not do this unless they ask you to. I’d be really uncomfortable with someone calling me Mg. LastName instead of Mx. LastName (Though I prefer that being avoided in general and just being FirstName).

      2. Ingrid*

        Someone once told me that was the expected form of address in the Faroe Islands. More often simply shortened to “you”. Nothing disrespectful about it, just being really practical and down to earth.

      3. KathyG*

        I had an old friend who would greet anyone & everyone as “Boom-Boom”. When mentioning someone to a third party, he would refer to them by name (“Joe told me…”), but in person it was always “Hello Boom-Boom”.

    4. LW*

      One of my team members (the one who most staunchly objects to this because she hates gendered titles) has gotten around it this way! She addresses all of her emails with [job title] [last name] – so it would be something like “PM Smith.” I could do the same, but it doesn’t address my main problem of not wanting to disrespect people by calling them something other than what they prefer :/

    5. iglwif*

      – Citizen Tremblay
      – Friend Angelopoulos
      – Coworker Schmidt
      – Colleague Xiao
      – Acquaintance Dimitrescu

    6. Chirpy*

      The one thing my Russian professor missed about the Soviet Union was that calling everyone “comrade” was so much easier than trying to figure out what level of formality to use.

      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        Historically Russian naming conventions were very specific and using the wrong ones would cause offence in both directions. I find this kind of thing endlessly fascinating.

        English doesn’t distinguish between informal and formal you, whereas German does. When I worked in Germany for a while, I learned to call everyone by their first name but use the formal you (Sie) for bosses and informal you (du) for coworkers.

        1. Myrin*

          It’s actually very rare to use “Sie” but also first names so I’m quite surprised to hear that! The only time in my whole life I remember that happening was with a lecturer in my first semester at university who was only a little older than most of us and, IDK, felt weird about that or something? So he suggested “the American style” (which is obviously ridiculous since, well, English only has one “you”!) and we were like “yeah, whatever” but let me tell you, it was SO awkward because it’s very unnatural/not something you ever do normally. But maybe there are other areas where this is common and I’ve just never heard of it?

          1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

            In fairness I was working in a university IT department so maybe that’s it!

          2. An American Abroad*

            While I generally agree with you that it is uncommon, there are some very specific types of jobs that use Sie+firstname as a standard practice. The two I have run in to, and there may be others, are: daycare/preschool teachers and nurses/other-medical-care-givers-who-are-not-doctors-or-otherwise-titled. So, for example, my kid’s preschool teacher was Linda and I was definitely supposed to use her first name but also Sie with her (although my kid wasn’t expected to use Sie because he was a kid). I don’t think I could tell you what her last name was, although I think it was posted on the org chart. Or, in a hospital, it would be Firstname for a nurse, posted on her name tag without any last name, but there was also the expectation to use Sie. The Sie is a gesture of respect and thus very important in both cases, despite the firstnames part.

            Initially, I found this deeply, deeply weird and hard to do because for so many years of German learning and living it was always siloed: Sie+lastname, du+firstname. But no. Just when I think I’ve got the hang of it…

        2. Chirpy*

          Yeah, Russian patronymics confuse me. And also, you have to ask the person’s father’s name to know what to call them?

          English does have a formal/informal “you”, but thee/thy/thou/thine has pretty much fallen completely out of daily use.

      2. Silver Robin*

        I commented above that my parents miss the First Name + Patronymic middle ground between “citizen/honorific ___” and “Frist name”. And honestly, I think that is very useful, but unless we actually institute and equivalent to patronymics in the US, I am not seeing a way to get there.

    7. Awesome Sauce*

      I have actually done this. I was volunteering at a sports event earlier this month. People would hand me their scorecard and wait for their turn, and I would call out the name on the scorecard when they were up. There was one person whose first name I could not read, and one whose name I couldn’t pronounce. So after mumbling awkwardly for a second, I just yelled, “Comrade Grant!” “Captain Smith!” or whatever it was.

    8. Innocent Bystander*

      Anyone who’d like some bracing examples of how to address folks as “Comrade So-and-So” should get a copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s “Leave It To Psmith” and start reading it ASAP.

  11. ariel*

    Maya Angelou was famous for doing this in her classrooms. I do wonder if she would have changed it over time! Regardless, it’s so annoying that the boss is committed to ignoring people’s preferences. Alison’s advice is good and hopefully she’ll understand her quirk is hers alone, though she refuses to see it’s a bad practice.

  12. Dido*

    Your boss is rude… as a 25 year old woman, the only time I’ve ever been called Ms. Surname is by the principal when I was in trouble at school, lol… it would make me uncomfortable to be called that in the workplace

    1. TPS Reporter*

      this also struck me as a schoolteacher/infantilizing vibe as well.

      it’s one thing if you can’t get her to stop being stuffy. But if she prevents you from just using first names when you speak to people, that to me seems like a bridge too far. I would have serious concerns about working with someone so controlling.

      1. Nah*

        I was recently called “little miss x” at a MRI scan looking for cancer. First off, it’s explicitly listed at the top of your chart next to your name what you should be addressed as (optional, great idea but honestly at this point it causes more discrimination/passive aggressive behavior from the supposed professionals I’m seeing than it’s worth and I’m getting rid of it before my upcoming surgery). Second, I am thirty-frickin-years old, not two. Just super demeaning and infantilizing, 0/10 do not recommend.

  13. Someday We Won't Remember This*

    I feel like the “gendered title” issue didn’t get addressed, and it may actually be the more important one. What happens if someone asks to be called Mx or another ungendered title? What happens if Ms Smith becomes Mr Smith or vice versa? Not to mention that insisting on using Mr/Ms rather than first names forces people to declare themselves in ways that may be uncomfortable or even unsafe for them.

    1. Manic Pixie HR Girl*

      This is where I am. We actually no longer even address as Mr./Ms. in appointment letters – just full name. Because we are discouraged from assuming gender and preferred pronouns. (Rightfully!)

    2. LW*

      As an active member of the LGBT community, this crossed my mind too. Sadly, I doubt that’s likely to come up anytime soon, as our agency’s culture is such that no one is comfortable being openly nb. I do hope we get there soon!

      1. NotBatman*

        Related question: do you have anyone with professional titles that aren’t Mr. and Ms.? I ask because I’m a female Dr. Lastname, who only insists on being Dr. because so many people use Dr. for my male colleagues and Ms. for my female ones, often in the same breath.

  14. cosmicgorilla*

    This is absolutely a Southern thing. At least, it’s an NC thing. Might not see it as much in bigger cities that are more of a melting pot of folks from other states and even countries. But I was taught that.it’s rude to call an adult by their first name. It’s always Mr. Or Miz first name for folks you’re closer to.

    Now, this is for kids as mentioned above, but it still gets used for older adults you know. I had a really hard time transitioning to calling bosses and such by their first names. It was as ingrained in me as the intermediate r would to our British Simon who apparently can’t not say Pauler. I had to work at it.

    This doesn’t mean LW has to follow suit, especially when folks are saying “call me first name!” But I very much understand why boss is doing it. When you’ve been conditioned for years upon years that just first name is wrong and rude, it’s a hard habit to break.

    1. cosmicgorilla*

      And my reply doesn’t get after the important issue of misgendering or forcing someone to declare. But there is a cultural element with boss.

    2. Certaintroublemaker*

      “Some others in the organization, including directors far above me, have insisted on first names as well.”

      I’d like to see those directors break LW’s boss of this habit.

    3. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      I think that’s true for everyone going from childhood to adulthood. I remember feeling really awkward calling my boss by their first name at first. Or someone several levels up in the hierarchy.

      1. Mrs Whosit*

        I had one brand-new professor my first semester of college who insisted we call him Joe. I just never addressed him directly until I had to ask a question by email. I addressed it to “Professor Joe”; he replied to “Student [Name]” — and I never did it again.

        1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

          I had one professor in college who I called by his university email handle. He reciprocated and that was how two semesters of classes we addressed each other. I can’t remember how that came up, but it was delightful. Over twenty years later, whenever I think of him, I think of his email name (which was, to be fair, his last name and his first initial, but I dropped the Dr.).

          1. Evan Þ*

            My high school computer science teacher did that with us all the time! Great guy; I liked it.

            Unfortunately we students couldn’t reciprocate, since the email handle for teachers was just their last name.

      2. louvella*

        I assume mostly for people going from childhood to adulthood in the south? As a kid I never called any adults by their last names except for teachers, and that always felt extremely weird to me.

    4. dawbs*

      it can be a bigger cultural issue than people realize–especially since the “witholding” of honorifics was a part of race and gender respect and all around a bigger discussion than just “mr”. There’s a lot of baggage with it.
      Because the fact that a child had to call all white people “mr” but it didn’t apply to people of color is a real thing.

      (Ex-I watched my teacher dad get very irritated with students who were disrespectful to staff –not teachers but staff. There was a both a “class” and another racial element to the students calling him “Mr. Teacher ” and calling the custodian “Jim”. Insisting on them being Mr. Custodian or at least “Mr Jim” was important
      . And he was Mr. Teacher and the secretary was “Pam”. He insisted that these staff members were given the same level of respect, because some students think they’re the boss of staff)

      I work in education and introduce myself as “dawbs” but I accept Ms Dawbs and I often use Mr/Mx/etc when referring to other staff (aka Mr. Steve) because I’ve witnessed to many kids getting to much crap from parents who are offended that the kids call staff by first names and it softens that.

      1. Broadway Duchess*

        I was hoping that someone would mention this. There can definitely be a racial element to this and a lot of the blurriness of language can come from those ideas of not just what is respectful but also who deserves it.

    5. MollyH*

      Rural North Carolina, maybe. The cities have many people from other states and countries.

  15. Juicebox Hero*

    I can’t help but wonder what she’d do about someone who’s non-binary. Even if she was willing to address them as Mx, people who aren’t out at work would either have to out themselves or put up with being misgendered all the livelong day.

    2. pally*

      I wondered this too.
      Had me concerned about how this strikes the non-binary employees.

    3. Petty_Boop*

      How would she pronounce it? When I read “Mx” I do it as “M X” … is there a correct pronunciation out loud? I’ve never said or heard it said, actually.

    4. Willem Dafriend*

      Yeah. If someone did this, I’d never come out at that workplace, or at the very least wait until everyone who called me “Ms.” retired or moved on. I’d assume coming out would open me up to discrimination and impact me professionally and socially.

      I stay closeted and let people misgender me at my current job for the same reasons, but since everyone calls me “Willem” instead of “Ms. Dafriend” or “Ms. Wilhelmina,” it’s only an issue if someone starts a conversation with “hi ladies.” And hardly anyone does that.

  16. Dawn*

    I did not realize that “from an older generation” could be a euphemism for vampirism, because nobody mortal is from that much older a generation that they don’t realize this isn’t how things are done anymore.

    2. PropJoe*

      I could see everyone on WWDITS not having an issue with it, except for Colin Robinson who derives energy from annoying people.

  17. I should really pick a name*

    Idle curiosity:
    Do other employees use first names in front of your boss?

  18. cosmicgorilla*

    That is a very incorrect assumption.

    Not eveyone is online. Or if they are, you’ve got folk that are only interacting with other folks in their small spheres. They’re not getting diverse and modern inputs, or they’re dismissing it as noise. What “those people” do.

    While we don’t know where LW is located or where boss is from, small, rural towns are not known generally for being progressive and embracing new societal norms. You will absolutely find folks there that don’t know that times have changed, or that know but look down on it as “these kids today!” Heck, you have folks in bigger cities that are just as insular and just as likely to cling to their old ways.

  19. Unkempt Flatware*

    I had this boss too! She also changed our dress code to require all women to wear panty hose even under our slacks and she would demand you showed her your non-socked ankles. Men had no such policy. They wore dress socks. She would also follow you around all day if you wore a dress making sure you weren’t being unladylike. So no bending over for any reason, no squatting (this was a bank so bending down to your vault is a constant thing), no using step stools or ladders, etc.

      1. Unkempt Flatware*

        Yes, we tried anyway. This was in the early aughts but the type of stocking that was just calf-high all seemed to fall down or scrunch and she would make you fix it.

        1. Salty Caramel*

          Knee-highs seem to come in two sizes: bag at the ankles or cut off your circulation.

          1. Dawn*

            They are definitely designed for a very specific leg profile in most cases. And nowadays so much stuff is designed and manufactured overseas that it really skews the sizing profiles further; I’m sorry, but I do not have the same thighs as the average woman in the country of manufacture!

    2. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      Wow. I had a director who insisted on panty hose with sandals in the early 2000s. But she didn’t follow you around. Previous to that, I got in trouble for not wearing hose with pants in the mid-90s. I just bought some trouser socks and that was good enough. But I thought it was dumb.

      Side note: I was taught squatting *is* the ladylike way to reach down while wearing a dress, because bending over could make your skirt ride up (or show your butt too much).

      1. Orv*

        I think gendered uniforms were found to not violate workplace nondiscrimination laws, but it’s possible that’s changed since I learned it.

    5. I should really pick a name*

      Sounds like a situation where coordinated disobedience would be a good approach.

      “Show me you ankles”
      “No. Now about the Mckinley report…”

    6. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yeah, the first thing I always notice when I’m in a bank and can only see the tellers from the nose up is whether or not they’re wearing panty hose or socks. /s

    7. New Jack Karyn*

      If that bank was part of a chain, I’d be sending a missive to corporate HR.

    8. Orv*

      Banks are the worst when it comes to stuff like that. I worked for one for a while and was required to wear slacks, a dress shirt, and a tie at all times. I worked IT and never interacted with customers, but I did spend a fair amount of time crawling under people’s desks. It was hard on my expensive slacks and the tie constantly got in my way.

  20. Double A*

    I’m a teacher and I would MUCH prefer to be called by my first name; alas, you have to go with the prevailing culture in a school. I used to think I liked how the honorific maintained a hierarchy in a school, then I worked in a juvenile detention facility where everyone used first names and it felt so much better and that it built better relationships. And if that’s a setting where it was preferable, then a regular school can handle it.

    However, even teachers pretty much call each other by our first names when we’re not in front of students or parents.

  21. Anonymel*

    It doesn’t sound like the boss has said, “No first names are to be used in this office; are we clear?” so much as she’s said SHE will not use first names. I’d continue to call people as they ask to be called, because that is the POLITE thing to do. She probably thinks she’s showing a level of respect, but in reality, it’s quite disrespectful to call someone something they prefer not to be called. I’m assuming this office has NOBODY who uses non-gendered pronouns? I’m wondering how she’d deal with that….

      1. Dawn*

        Yes, exactly, that’s why I have not commented on that recurring question thus far.

        She’s allegedly from the Deep South and clearly has Opinions about gender; we really don’t need to ask that question to know how that one’s going to end up.

      2. LW*

        Honestly and truly, I don’t think she has given it a second thought and if it were to come up I think she would be open. She’s a very kind and tolerant person, but based on my interactions with her I’d be shocked if she even knew that non-binary people existed. She reminds me very much of my own grandmother in that way – she was if anything overzealous about being supportive, but completely uninformed because it just didn’t touch her world at all

        1. Manic Pixie HR Girl*

          Ah, okay. Thank you for the context! I know we had similar confusion when we started actively encouraging employees to include pronouns on their email signatures (for example), but now it’s pretty standard, most people are used to it.

    2. MCMonkeybean*

      I agree, based just on this letter it sounds like she likely knows that she’s the odd one out and wouldn’t care how OP addresses anyone else. I’d skip the conversation and just address people how they prefer unless she brings it up later.

      Honestly I would definitely not use Alison’s script because saying “I want to respect what people ask me to call them, so I prefer to follow their lead and use their first names if they prefer it.” is inherently telling your boss that she’s being DISrespectful. And I definitely think that is a reasonable take on the situation but I assume OP does not want to have that particular conversation with their boss.

      1. amoeba*

        Yeah, that stood out to me as well!

        I would also just address people the way I/they prefer. So probably Ms Lastname for her and first name for everybody else…
        I mean, here in my part of Europe, it’s actually not super uncommon, and a few years ago, last names (“Herr/Frau XY”) were pretty standard in the workplace. (It was also a whole complicated system who was on first name terms with whom! The more senior person was allowed to offer – and there were even things like “first names/Du for drinks tonight but tomorrow at work we’re back to last name”)

        But anyway – there are still a few, erm, old guard style people who prefer being addressed and addressing others that way. None of them have ever had any problem with others doing it differently! That would be a whole different level of unreasonable, even here. So I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine!

    1. Anonymel*

      It would be controlling IF the boss said “there will be NO use of first names by anyone in this office,” but she seems to ONLY be saying that SHE won’t use them. Self-controlling maybe, but others seem to be free to use them if they so choose.

  23. quirky alone*

    I have a very unusual last name and despise it when people mispronounce it. Hell, my big boss still mispronounces it after 15 years of working together.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      People tend to stick a W that doesn’t belong into mine (think Herowski vs. Heroski) and have even had people correct me on the pronunciation of my own freaking last name. Having it misprounounced all day would make me stabby.

      1. iglwif*

        This is literally why I changed my surname when I got married. Spouse’s surname is very easy for English speakers, whereas my birth surname can be misspelled and mispronounced half a dozen different ways in a single day. (For my high school graduation, we each had to write a phonetic pronunciation of our names on an index card and hand it to the vice principal announcing names. The VP managed to mispronounce not just my surname but even my bog-standard English-language middle name!!!)

    2. Rick Tq*

      I feel your pain, enough that I go by my initials at work almost exclusively.

      It is a rare person who can pronounce my 7 letter surname correctly.

    3. Flower necklace*

      I also have an unusual last name that tends to be mispronounced. And I’m a teacher, so Mr./Ms. is the default in front of students and teachers you don’t know well. I use the first initial of my last name (like “Ms. S” instead of “Ms. Smith”), but I occasionally run across someone who insists on using my complete last name without learning how to say it properly. It grates on me every time.

    4. Reebee*

      Can you be instructive about its pronunciation? I mean, to be content to “despise” people for erring in a way they don’t realize seems pretty harsh. Why not just politely correct them instead?

    5. Orv*

      Same. For a while my local grocery store had a policy where the cashier had to say your name (derived from your credit card) at the beginning and end of every transaction. It was supposed to make people feel at home but it just meant I got to hear my name butchered twice every time I went there.

  24. Ally S*

    I had a lightning bulb moment about this early in my career as a young 20 something. A coworker was “Beverly” (not her real name) and I automatically called her Bev. A few months later she said something to the effect of “I introduce myself as Beverly because I want people to call me Beverly, half the time they insist on calling me Bev which is what I wanted to avoid.” My mind–so steeped in the culture of nicknames–was blown

    It is much much ruder to not use the name someone asks to be called than to insist on only formalities, and this is before we get to how this leads to misgendering people with a Mr or Ms

    1. Dawn*

      This one took me a little while too, because I came from a small town where literally everyone had a nickname or whose nickname was otherwise shortened. My manager in my high school job was “Bird”. That was the only way anyone referred to him, including the business owner. Bird was neither his actual first, nor his last name.

    2. Silver Robin*

      I have this too; I started going by the longer version of my name after undergrad and while it is not terribly upsetting if folks use my “Bev”, it is presumptuous to me. Even in emails where I expressly signed with the long version in addition to my signature block. Nope, “Bev”. Does not help that my nickname uses a less common spelling (-ie vs -y kind of thing). It is a fascinating experiment and I am so glad I do not have a stronger reaction because people absolutely just go for it.

      1. Lily Rowan*

        That makes me nuts! I don’t mind if friends call me “Lil” in conversation, but I generally don’t like it at work, and I’m not crazy about it in writing from anyone. Which I realize is slightly odd on my part! But there’s something about it being just an abbrev. vs. an official nickname.

  25. notasecurityguard*

    apparently I’m in the minority with millennials on this but i actually kind of prefer the more formal titles or something similar at work. It could be because my bosses have typically been older than me and there’s been some of that “millenials are children” attitude and so i find it’s just a reminder that we’re not friends and we need to interact with eachother in a professional way. Granted: once i start working with someone for awhile i may drop the honorific (so Mr Smith might become just Smith but never “John”)

    1. Laser99*

      I believe formal titles are appropriate in some circumstances because it reinforces the formality of a particular stage (like school). You might be friendly and all that with your professor, but you don’t say “Hey Bob, about that equation…”

      1. KToo*

        Unless you went to school in the 70’s with hippy teachers who really did have everyone call call them by their first names (my husband’s school was like that). When my youngest kids were in elementary over half their teachers went by Mr/Ms FirstName, but by highschool it was it all Mr/Ms LastName.

      3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Until you’re in grad school. We absolutely used first names with the faculty there.

        1. amoeba*

          Yup, and it was such a weird change as well for the first months… my PhD supervisor was very much a “Professor X”, not a “Bob”, honestly.

          (By the time I graduated and started my postdoc, anything but first names would have felt super strange, OTOH!)

      4. Happy*

        I disappointed for you that your experience was like that.

        I enjoyed being able to talk about equations with my professors, who treated me as a person worthy of equal respect – just as someone who had less education than they had. I really value both those relationships and the instruction I received from those professors. That kind of respect also made it clear that they saw me as a person capable of high-level research, like they had accomplished.

    2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Oh my, last name without either title or first name strikes me as absurdly upper-crust British.

      “Oh, yes, Cadwallader here will be taking over for Smythe, isn’t that so, Smythe? Wilkins, do come in!”

      1. allathian*

        Yes, and it’s very gendered, too. Women are never addressed by just their last name, always with a title denoting their marital status (Miss or Mrs., never Ms.). The only exception may be some traditionally male-dominated professions like the police, where people are usually addressed by rank and last name (except partners who work closely together sometimes use first names in private) but superiors may omit the rank when addressing their subordinates.

        This goes hand in hand with the idea that true informality and friendship can only exist between people of the same gender (with the possible exception of long-married couples) and social class. Tolkien subscribed to this idea and it shows in his writing.

    3. Silvercat*

      Also a millennial and I’d love if titles (with Mx included) would come back, or addressing people with last names. But I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon and I’m not about to be the weirdo that insists on it.

      The only person I regularly address with a title is my Dad and that’s Mom’s fault. “Mr. LastName” is basically his nickname around the house. (to be clear, he’s not always called that; we vary between Dad, FirstName, and Mr. LastName, and sometimes “tall person”)

  26. Hiring Mgr*

    Reading the letter there’s no indication the boss cares about this other than for herself. She’s allowed to feel that way, but it doesn’t sound like she’s imposing this on others.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      LW is wondering if she should do the same as her boss because that’s what some bosses expect–especially if you are up for promotion.

      And again–the advice to just use your words (in other words, ask your boss about it) is apt here. But this such a weird thing from a boss that I would be a bit freaked out by it too.

  27. Laser99*

    I have an oddly formal manner, and I tend to say “sir” or “ma’am”/“miss”. No one has ever taken the offense. Usually they just say, “Oh, you can call me Chris.”

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      As long as you call them Chris after they tell you to, that shouldn’t bother anyone.

    2. Wren*

      I wouldn’t assume you’ve never upset anyone, my partner and I are both non-binary and we rarely let people know when they’ve ruined our day in this particular way

      1. Wren*

        And to forestall anyone who says “how will they know if you don’t tell them!”, it’s not my job to come out to the person serving me food or giving me a covid test or whatever. Especially if they’ve preemptively indicated that they subscribe to binary gender roles and are invested in imposing them on everyone they meet.

        1. Wren*

          Also most cis women I know loathe this form of address, not least because all (presumed) men are sir, while presumed women get the fun layer of being classified based on (again, presumed) age

          1. Orv*

            I was going to say, the only people I know who actually like being called “ma’am” are transgender women, who often find it validating. Every cisgender woman I know hates it because they feel like it implies they’re old.

          2. Emily Byrd Starr*

            “Miss” is for unmarried women, “Ma’am” is for married women. Check the third finger of her left hand. If she has a ring on it, say “Ma’am,” if she doesn’t, say, “Miss.” This still doesn’t solve the question of what to call NB people, though. I generally use Sir/Ma’am/Miss for people when I don’t know their name, let alone their gender identity.

        2. Laser99*

          I apologize for offending you. It’s truly not a matter of gender roles. I do it because I was raised to address everyone formally, and have never quite shaken it off.
          As for genderfluid/non-binary, the one time I used “Mx”, the person was female-identifying, and took umbrage. I’m trying, I really am.

          1. Wren*

            Yeah I would just… not assume people’s gender (and age)? It might be hard to shake but that’s the solution, not adding a third gender to assume about. For what it’s worth I’m neurodivergent and my parents were in a cult so I get that unlearning habits / learning social norms can be hard. But definitely worth it not mildly annoy or misgender a significant portion of the people you interact with (like basically everyone except cis men who might be neutral about it or binary trans people who you correctly gender who might be happy about it (as Orv said), assuming you DO gender them correctly)

          2. Mixing it up*

            If you are trying, you could… stop using honorifics that gender people based on how you perceive them. As it stands, you are willing to hurt/upset/offend others because you haven’t put in the work to “shake off” a lesson from your childhood. Is that who you want to be?

            (Mx is a title to be used when someone indicates that they prefer it, not assigned based on how you perceive their gender from their presentation. As are Mr, Mrs and Ms.)

    3. Emily Byrd Starr*

      Just out of curiosity, what is the equivalent of Sir, Ma’am, or Miss for a non-binary person? All the gender neutral names I can think of are only appropriate for someone you have a close relationship with, such as Honey, Buddy, Pal, Dear, Friend, etc. I suppose you could say “neighbor” as that is gender neutral, but you run the risk of sounding like Fred Rogers.

  28. Someone Else's Boss*

    I learned from a boss years ago to call someone what they ask to be called/introduce themselves as. If you say your name is Robert, I will not be calling you Bobby. Even if I hear someone else say it, unless/until you tell me yourself. I would not be able to work for someone who refused to call me by my name. If nothing else, I should be respected at work and it’s disrespectful to call someone what YOU prefer instead of what THEY prefer.

    1. Zee*

      Ugh I have a coworker who shortens everyone’s name when we have several people who are very particular about “it’s Johnathon not John” situations. And mispronounces someone’s name that has two common pronunciations. Drives me insane!

  29. Frumpenberger*

    My current boss really, really hates curse words, even mild ones, and is not shy about telling us so. Our previous culture was freewheeling sweary times. It’s been a big shift for some folks to moderate their language. I totally agree with Allison here: ask, don’t guess, and use whatever people want when the boss isn’t around, regardless, and explain why you are using surnames when in front of your supervisor if she expresses a strong preference that you follow her convention. I can’t imagine it will last long from anyone but her, though.

  30. Phony Genius*

    I wonder what this boss would do if she deals with clients and the client asks to be addressed by their first name. If she says “it’s not gonna happen” to a client, the company could lose the client.

    1. LW*

      She was military before coming to the government (specifically HR), so I don’t think she’s ever had much interaction with external parties! I agree it’s a significant blind spot

      1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

        Oh that’s an important detail! It’s probably much more of a 20-year ingrained adult military habit than it is a Southern thing.

        1. LW*

          I considered that too! Although the vast majority of our staff are former military (I am an exception) and no one else is like this

          1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

            Some ex-military adapt to civilian forms of address more easily.

            I’ve worked with active & retired military most of my 30+ year career. Sometimes this is just A Thing with them that carries over to their next phase in life. Happens to both career enlisted/NCO and officers alike. Sometimes they learn to back off, but still address people higher up in the hierarchy with a title of some sort.

            I think you can relax; even the most obtuse person in a military setting realizes that there is one set of behavior for those in uniform and a different set for civilians. She may not have been able to make the switch herself, but I’d be pretty confident that she understands that it’s ok for you to address people differently than she does.

      2. MozartBookNerd*

        Speaking of military, a possible parallel is that law professors used to be notoriously tough on law students, almost like stereotypical boot-camp sergeants. And those earlier law professors typically called their students Mr. Lastname or Ms. Lastname!

        One pop-culture instance: in the movie Paper Chase, John Houseman (as Professor Kingsfield) imperiously embarrassing Timothy Bottoms (as student James T. Hart) in front of all the other students, and calling him “Mmmmissster Hart.”

        I think the (misguided, quasi-militaristic, awkward) motivation of the law professors, in that era, was to try to instill in students a sense of professionalism. “You’re not just a student but a budding officer of the court, etc.”

      3. Don't Call Me Shirley*

        I haven’t been in the military for over 20 years, and most of my friends and acquaintances from that time still call me by just my last name.

        And I’m a woman and was only a reservist.

  31. Zee*

    “I prefer first names too, but Jane prefers we address people more formally, and I’m choosing not to go against that when she’s in the conversation.”

    This would irritate me a lot more than if LW just called me “Ms. Smith” without any explanation. The admission of “I know it’s wrong but I’m doing it anyway” is doubling down on how offensive it is to not call people by their chosen name.

  32. Sparrow*

    I think there is also definitely a gender component here—I’m nonbinary and use the title “Mx.” (pronounced “mix”, for the curious); would your boss be okay calling me Mx. [Surname], or would she insist on using Ms. or Mr. for me? Would she insist on calling a trans woman Mr. Lannister or a trans man Mrs. Stark? If a trans person explicitly told her “I do not use any title at all for gender reasons”, would she respect that or would she just pick a title to use for them?

    If you know for a fact she will respect what titles people tell her to use, then that might not be an issue… but given that she doesn’t respect when people tell her “don’t use a title at all”, I am wary. And if she does use her gendered titles in a transphobic way, this moves immediately out of “weird, old-fashioned quirk” into “serious incident of bigotry and discrimination”, at which point I think you should stop catering to this and either bluntly tell her that she’s being transphobic or just go to HR/someone above her if you think any of them would care.

    (Also, wanted to note to some commenters I’ve seen saying “I live in the south and that isn’t a thing here”: the south is a huge geographic region that spans multiple states, and just because it isn’t a thing in your particular corner of the south doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing anywhere. This is absolutely a thing in many parts of the south!)

    1. LW*

      Based on all I know of her, I truly, genuinely think she would respect whatever title is preferred. As I’ve said elsewhere in the thread, I doubt she is even aware of the existence of nonbinary people, but I have zero reason to believe she would display bigotry towards anyone. I’m gay myself so I agree the slightest hint of that would immediately sour me on her forever.

      1. I'm here for the cats*

        I’m so glad to hear this, and this one comment turned my initial thought of “NOPE” to “odd, but wholesome”. Even though I would still be misgendered if I were in that room.

    2. Nah*

      Except this person *is* HR according to a reply up-thread. Pretty high on the Yikes meter of positions for her to be in (CEO would be worst I think, but head of HR is up there)!

  33. KToo*

    I would probably get in trouble by telling boss lady that if she continued to not call me by my preferred name that I’d consider it harassment. I’m 51 and have rarely if ever run across anyone in my working life who wanted to be called Mr/Ms, and if it so it might have been the company owner. I’d find it awkward but would do it in that case, would find it completely out of touch and ridiculous with a peer or close level teammate. But even now I work for a Fortune 500 company and the president and all execs and c-suite, etc… are all first name basis, even in our global branches.

    My kids friends even call me by my first name. The only time I ever get Mrs. Husband’s LastName (which is not my name!) is someone who only knows our kid(s). The cutest was one of my son’s friends when very young didn’t know my name and called me ‘Mrs.Son’sName Mom’. But if I hear Ms.LastName I assume my mom must be nearby because it couldn’t possibly be me.

  34. Pickaduck*

    I rarely disagree with the advice here, but there is no way I would have that conversation with this very odd woman. I would start calling people what they want to be called, period.

  35. Falling Diphthong*

    When people push back against using a less formal name, it’s often because the other person is pushing a boundary that the more formal speaker wants to maintain.

    “It’s Sammy! You and I are really, really good buddies! Amirite? C’mere and gimme a hug!”
    “No, Mr. Smith.”

    “He’s not ‘Todd.’ He’s ‘Master.’ And I’m ‘Slave’.”
    “Nope.”

    For broad swaths of humans, calling each person what they want is quite reasonable. But that’s not quite applicable to all contexts. And when you run up against that exception, then “I default to calling everyone by the most formal version, across the board” is a reasonable approach. I’d say it’s a better starting point than insisting on calling everyone by the least formal version of their name across the board. And if it’s not across the board–some people are pleased that you have assigned them the less formal category, and some people are frustrated. As with the “Mr. Jones and his secretary, Georgia” examples.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      “He’s not ‘Todd.’ He’s ‘Master.’ And I’m ‘Slave’.”

      Someone did write in about a coworker who wanted everyone to refer to her boyfriend as “master.”

    2. Emily Byrd Starr*

      Are you, by any chance, referring to the classic AAM letter where someone asked her co-workers to call her boyfriend “master?”

  36. The Baconing*

    Please call people by the name they request once formal introductions have been made. There are numerous reasons for that, most of which revolve around etiquette and politeness, but, also, a person may not want to be called by a gendered name, may not like their last name for reasons but can’t change, might not feel comfortable at that level of formality if they are your peer or below, etc.

    As others have stated, it’s almost more rude to insist on addressing something in a way they’ve asked you not to. Your boss’s behaviour is odd.

  37. BBB*

    your bosses response is so much ruder than just using peoples names!
    i also feel like Mr./Mrs. vs Miss/Ms has vastly different vibes? like, yes they all have different meanings but the tone and implication of calling a professional adult ‘Miss’ hits different in a not good way. Probably because men don’t get classified based on their marital status while women do.
    But even as a cis woman, I’d be filing a formal complaint with HR if my boss refused to call me by my own name and insisted, against my expressed wishes, to use an overly formal and needlessly gendered address. It’s dismissive and rude. Doing it to everyone doesn’t make it okay. And it’s a matter of time before she lands in hot water with this behavior.

  38. Anne Shirley Blythe*

    I was so glad to see Alison’s last paragraph. I would bristle at using another person’s preference when addressing my team members–even if that person manages me.

  39. Marketing Belle*

    Southern native here! I will say it is definitely a cultural thing here to call someone using Ms. or Mr. But also, people generally acquiesce when asked to use a first name/no title (unless it’s a younger person addressing an older person). It’s hardwired into us from a very young age, and some people don’t really get the notice that the rules change once you’re actually the older one. It definitely took me some getting used to when I realized I needed to call my coworkers (some of whom are 20-30 years older than me) by their first names only.

  40. DMLOKC*

    I ‘d bet this is a boss who doesn’t want to acknowledge that not everyone is Mr., Miss, Mrs. or Ms. Some people have fluid gender identities and none of these prefixes is correct. She’s trying to box people into her limited categories. I’d insist on calling people what they prefer regardless of what the boss wants.

  41. Strict Extension*

    I worked for an organization where the head insisted on calling everyone by Honorific Lastname and passionately wished for this to be the norm for everyone. Her explanation was that it showed everyone we were working with (a lot of volunteers and contractors that came in on a short-term basis) that we thought of them as professionals whom we respected and valued. The main problem was that this was just about as informal a field as you can imagine. Think rock music venue where they’re trying to get all the band members, technicians and bartenders to call each other “Dr. Jones” and “Mr. Smith.” The only ones doing it were the org head and her second-in-command. I flatly refused to, partially because I thought it was generally ridiculous, and partly because most of these people are folks I’d known for years and considered friends outside of these short-term contracts. A general survey of others revealed reactions ranging from eye-rolling about how silly it was to being actually kind of angry that they would claim this level of “professionalism” while occasionally doing other things that are considered extremely professionally disrespectful, akin to putting lipstick on a pig. No one said they liked or appreciated it, or that they took the meaning from it that the org head intended.

    I was somewhat horrified when a new admin came in, called me “Ms. Lastname,” and when I told her I hated that convention and to please call me by my first name, she replied that using Honorific Lastname for all her coworkers was in her contract. I think that was the extinction burst of trying to get it to catch on.

  42. DrSalty*

    This so wild and your boss is clearly in the wrong. I would call people by their first names. Don’t get pulled into her weirdness.

  43. Queen of Something*

    I had to have a chat with one of my employees a few weeks because he insisted on addressing everyone who was not on our team Mr./Ms., even after several of those people asked him to please use their first name. This was also in the context of him being an older man and almost everyone else being a much younger woman. management only approved speaking to him after a senior male manager complained.

  44. Jo-El*

    Being from the South I can tell you it’s a cultural thing intended as a sign of respect. And while the “not gonna happen” comment is not welcome, you are asking her to undo a lifetime of addressing people a certain way and that’s hard and uncomfortable to do. I have irritated people by saying “yes sir” and “yes ma’am” because it is how I was raised and it was ingrained in me.

    1. MCMonkeybean*

      OP isn’t asking their boss to change though, they are wondering whether they need to adjust their own practices to match her.

  45. Anat*

    I think what’s happening is that the boss greatly prefers to be addressed by her last name herself. And doesn’t want the weird dynamic where everyone addresses her as Ms.Whatsit and she calls them by their first names in return. Like she was their school teacher. Arguably that would be even more jarring than the present situation, wouldn’t it?

    She’s the boss; it’s a little rude but if she decides that all her interactions with people are going to be formal, she can make that call.

    If I’m right, it’s probably fine for the LW to follow his own rules.

  46. QuaintIrene*

    One (among thousands) of my pet peeves about Hallmark movies is they ALWAYS call people Mr. and Mrs. Whatever in business settings.

  47. VP of Monitoring Employees' LinkedIn Profiles*

    In my office, everybody from Analyst Trainees up to the Senior VP goes by first names or preferred nicknames. We may add last names or initials as needed just to clarify among multiple Janes and Wakeens, but that’s the exception.

  48. HateMs*

    On a slightly adjacent topic, I was in my late 20s or early 30s before I discovered that most people associate Miss with a young girl, not an unmarried woman. If I have to be formal I prefer Miss – I don’t like the way Ms. sounds, kind of like a buzzing bee to my ear. I spend most of my time in Male-dominated spaces so I switched when I found out, but I still hate Ms.

    These days almost everyone uses my first name. The last pillar to fall was getting called back to a doctor from the waiting room – most of my providers still used Mr/Ms until the mid 2010s. Everyone else has been first name only for ages.

  49. ChangeIsHard*

    I do sympathize with folks trying change long held habits. Changing how we identify people is hard.

    Fr the first time ever I now work with someone who shares my first and last initial. We’ve both had to get used to using our middle initial in written notations so folks can distinguish between us. We both screw up a lot.

    If someone is used to always using formal address it will take some effort to change if they’re asked to do so. They should make the attempt, but everyone should understand it will be a process and mistakes will be made.

  50. Aardvark*

    But it doesn’t mean ‘mix’. The x is just to signify that r, s or rs aren’t appropriate letters for that person.

    I have exclusively heard it pronounced more as Mks without a distinct vowel, so I would be surprised if a there were many people interpreting it as meaning a mix.

  51. Aardvark*

    I live in Australia where the idea of calling any of my work colleagues, including all the senior management, anything other than their first name (or preferred nickname) would be odd.

    All my work email addresses have used preferred names without question. (Although annoyingly after an update some of our backend stuff defaults to full legal name. I didn’t realise until then how many of my colleagues go by their middle name.)

    The only time it has been an issue is when we got a new top boss who was brought in from overseas. He was quite put out when he realised that no-one was going to be calling him Sir. (It was a useful foretelling of how he then tried to run the site. It did not go well)

    1. I'm here for the cats*

      Being called “Sir” in Australia would be incredibly odd, unless armed force or police. My default is someone is being really unprofessionally aggressive if I ever hear this in most context.

  52. I'm here for the cats*

    I’m more baffled that this is something she has such strong feelings about. I’m based in Australia, I have colleagues who are below my rank from different cultures where they felt they must address me as “Title Here For Cats”. Given the local culture, it can be taken as sarcasm and disrespect, which we have very good faithed discussed and we went for the safer first name basis. I have no issue addressing others as Mr/Ms/Mrs if they requested either, it’s about other person’s preferences.

    That and I strongly dislike the gendered aspect of the most common titles. I don’t think I can ever come out at my work because of the discrimination, but also. Intrinsic nope every time I’m referred to as cis title.

  53. RVA Cat*

    For some reason the stiff formality makes me think of Master & Commander. Here’s hoping the OP’ boss is not a flogging captain.

  54. Peanut Hamper*

    If I had a boss who insisted on calling me Mx. Hamper, I would go to one of those websites where you can get ordained online and also get a doctorate of divinity degree while I’m there for an extra $30. Then I could, in all honesty, say “Actually, that’s the Reverend Doctor Hamper.”

  55. LJ*

    Reading LW’s comments really changed my take on this –
    * the manager and many of the coworkers are ex-military and come from that culture (and folks probably aren’t being offended by being called by their last name)
    * the manager seems like a good supportive human being
    * most importantly, the leadership of the organization is addressed by their titles

    I can definitely see how all that would lead to a position where someone wants to show as much respect to all colleagues as they do to leadership. And culture starts from the top – if the director is Dr. Smith, then it’s not surprising that folks will go off that cue

  56. nnn*

    I feel like it’s precedented for a higher-ranking person to deliberately create distance with more formality while still allowing for the rank and file to be more informal among themselves.

    I had a very old-fashioned professor in university who addressed male students as Surname and female students as Miss Surname (none of us were brave enough to ask to be addressed as Ms., or worldly enough to ask what happens if a student is neither male or female) . We, of course, addressed him as Professor Surname, but there was no expectation from either side that we should stop addressing each other by first name.

    You also see it in media depictions of military – for example, in MASH, Col. Potter most often addresses his subordinates by rank and/or surname and they address him as Colonel in return, but they still address each other by nicknames or first names.

    Even in families – your friend’s parents address you by the full three-syllable version of your given name, while your friend addresses you by your mildly insulting playground nickname.

  57. Sally*

    To LW2 – Can you try using a small mirror on your desk? I have seen many people do this at my workplace and it seems to help them.

  58. Ms No First Name*

    My boss’s boss only refers to us as Ms/Mrs/Mr. For him it is a cultural thing and a sign of respect. He fully understands that we aren’t going to refer to each other that way, and doesn’t want us to change it.

    It’s one of those things that we just kind of roll along with.

  59. Delta Delta*

    When I see adults addressing one another that way it makes me think of “Are You Being Served?” and then I giggle because I always found that show to be very funny. I might even ask her “are you free?” when she is very apparently free, just so I could give myself another giggle.

    And then I’d go on doing my job as normal and addressing people as they wish to be addressed.

  60. AMS*

    I dont know how I’d respond in this letter writers shoes. I feel like if she called me Ms. LASTNAME, and I said, call me FIRSTNAME, and she said thats not gonna happen, I’d….. do something unprofessional. Probably the most professional response I’d manage would be a look of shock and annoyance, maybe a “wow”, followed by me walking away. The unprofessional response might get me fired LOL.

    And I’m just a cishet woman who doesnt particularly care about what people label me as, if I was misgendered I wouldnt even bother to correct someone or even flag it mentally. I just do not care. But to say to my FACE that you wont use my name? Oh hell no.

  61. Cookingcutie*

    It blew my mind when I was a teenager and got a job in a drugstore and my boss let us call him by his first name. Friends’ parents, teachers, and most adults were always Mr or Mrs. Now that I’m well into adulthood and a parent, I can’t imagine asking my son’s friends to address me as Mrs. and my last name, or to address another grown adult in a professional setting that way, either.

  62. Tiger Snake*

    I hope LW’s not part of an international company – while there’s plenty of countries where the polite form of address is absolutely necessary and so of course should be followed when speaking to those people, every Australian hair on my head bristled with ‘oh you’re a pompous little so-and-so’ at the idea of someone calling me Ms.

  63. Dancing Otter*

    There was a period of time – early 80’s, perhaps? – when widows were allowed to continue as Mrs. Husband’s Full Name (but might drop his first name and use their own to signify they were ready to date); divorcees were supposed to be Mrs. Maiden Name Married Name; but if you didn’t want the divorce, see version one.
    That’s just way too much information to parse just to address a thank you note. AND more than I would want to hand out on my first day at a new job.

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