Manners Matter.
I'm not that old (despite the increasing number of grey hairs), but I sometimes feel old-fashioned.
I remember watching TV shows and movies where two characters would meet and one might ask "Mr. Smith?" only to be told "Please... Mr Smith is my father. I'm John!" There would be a handshake, a smile, some laughter... I used to think that was pretty cool and thought to myself that I would have to remember to use lines like that when I was older.
Turns out I haven't had to.
It's pretty standard these days for me (and everyone I am assuming) to go into a place of business and have the employees go "Hey, Craig! How's it going!" I also get the occasional nod and a "'Sup?"
And it irritates me.
While I always expected to offer my first name as mentioned above, I find the forced familiarity to be a bit off-putting. In the words of Ben Stone from Law and Order "And in polite society, Sir, you don't call people by their first name unless they ask you to-- I didn't do that. You're not a friend, and you're certainly not a colleague."
When I was a kid, I had a teacher who asked me to call her by her first name and it put me in quite the quandary. I wanted to respect her wishes, but I'd always been taught that a child calling an adult by their first name was rude. As a result, whenever I need to talk to her, I ended up simply staring at her until she addressed me.
As an adult, I had similar problems. I worked for a time as a manager-in-training in a cheque cashing business. We were expected to look at a cheque to find the customer's first name and then address them by it, but I always refused which resulted in some conflict with my boss. I told him that I was simply not going to meet an 80 year-old woman for the first time and say "Hey, Martha! How's it going!" If my mother had been around to hear me do that, she would have put me through a wall.
I didn't last too long at that job...
I'm finding it a bit tougher online, because usually you only have a person's first name to go by, but I still do my best to be as courteous as possible. I'm often told that the idea behind addressing people in a familiar manner is to create rapport with them and create a relationship, but if you ask me, the best way to create a relationship with a client (or anyone) is to show them respect first, and to me, that includes addressing them properly.
It is very easy when dealing with people online to forget your manners, but I think that's all the more reason to focus on them. Whether someone comes into your brick-and-mortar store or simply visits your website, they are your customer and deserve to be treated with respect.
I hope that "old-fashioned" never goes out of fashion.
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Should we address you as "Mr. W315"? (smile) I am in the construction industry in Texas and work with many Mexicans. They always address me as Mr. Patrick. I will have to ask them if that is because they don't know my last name but I do know that many DID know my last name. My company name contained my last name but I was always addressed as Mr. Patrick. Was this an endeavor to be polite? I don't know.
I was raised to address folks by their last name. If I don't know it, I just use sir or m'am/Miss......
The same for me. I will use sir and ma'am until we have established enough of a relationship for them to prefer me to call them otherwise.
My wife is from the Philippines and was taught to use "kuya" (addressing a male) and "ate" (addressing a female, pronounced ah-tay) for addressing one's elders. This would include siblings, cousins, etc. My kids have been raised with a mix of cultures, addressing people with sir/ ma'am, Mr/ Mrs/ Miss if they are using a family name, or kuya/ ate with a first name.
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
That is a very good post. I am almost 70, and I don't do the old school stuff. I am the old school stuff. i do still say ser and maam. I open doors for people...yes, people. The thing that is most clearly missing, at least in America, is respect. I am old school, and respect was not something you did, it is something that you were.
God bless you,
Ernie
I still hold the door for people, too, although I find that in recent years, doing so will sometimes get a negative reaction from women-- even though I hold the door for other men as well.
Thanks for the response.
I don't know if acting overfamiliar is the problem a lot these days or whether it's simply lack of "elegance" in how people speak, too casual, too much slang.
It can also be off-putting if someone is too formal, like they're unfriendly and don't really care to get to know you.
Of course, whether one is overly informal or overly formal or just right also depends on how they say it and their body language.
Generally, if a person isn't judgmental, I don't have a problem with it. There's this person who works at the post office who never ever smiles and the last time I was there, I could swear she frowned at me. So that's even worse than not being respectful. I was going to write a negative review on Yelp.com, but I thought I'd just forget about it, as it's not worth plugging up my mind with negativity.
I agree. Much depends on tone and body language, for sure. As much as I may have stressed being polite and the way to address people, I was also raised to look people in the eyes and smile when greeting them.
Unfortunately, when you're online, you have no visual/ verbal cues to rely on, so I can understand a bit better why people might choose a more familiar route; certainly in my writing, I try to keep a more casual tone. I still think that there is a certain decorum that should be maintained, however.
I know that both sides can be argued and I'm sure that there are any number of studies to show that either way is the "better" way.
Thank you for taking the time to read and respond.
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My view Craig,......no two people are the same, everyone is an individual. You need to call the approach on how you see it......but always with respect and honesty.