I’m happy to get emails that address me by the first part of my email address.
I know right away they are spam or scam messages and can delete them without bothering to read the text.
“(Weenieroast), you’ve won a $250 tool set from Harbor Freight!”
Nope, to the trash you go.
I also do not have a middle name - I’m almost 70 and have never, once ever, had anyone be upset about it.
I believe that names ‘being a minefield’ says more about you than the actual minefield. My first name has a common alternate spelling that is considerably different than the way mine is spelled. Neither are unusual. In business I interact with 20 - 40 people a day. Frequently, I write text or emails by stating, "Good afternoon, this is (my correct spelling)…’ about 20% of the time they write back saying, "Hello (wrong spelling), when the correct spelling is staring them straight in the face. And guess what? Doesn’t bother me in the least. I smile and go about the rest of my day. Minefield averted
Of course, there is no way you can know this. Look, I know most corporations are evil. But maybe some of them genuinely appreciate your business and are trying to show that appreciation by acknowledging you as a person.
And I’m happy to have an opposing view, and respect your right to be offended (I mean that sincerely) but the fact that that a clerk calling someone by their actual name can cause such outrage just boggles my mind.
This comes across as quite dismissive and patronizing. It’s nice that these things don’t bother you. Names are perhaps not that important to you. My name is important to me. I’m not going to escalate the situation when someone gets it wrong, but I notice.
If you are a business trying to make a sale or build customer loyalty, why would you insist on a one-size-fits-all package that is guaranteed to annoy some rather than simply calling people what they prefer to be addressed? And what is wrong with those 20% of people that they don’t notice they’re addressing Kathy as Cathy?
If it did, I apologize but it is my true feelings. That being called your actual name - even by a stranger - could be considered a minefield is so far out of my worldview I don’t know how else to parse it. And you left out that I did acknowledge we disagreed.
Who the fuck knows - I ask myself that weekly.
You might try this approach:
Generation thing or geography thing, I don’t know, but I hate being addressed as Ms Lastname (or worse, Mrs or Miss…) and I absolutely don’t want anyone tacking a Ms/Mrs/Miss onto my first name. Just call me First-name, please and thank you, regardless of how well we know each other, our ages, martial status, or our genders. I really dislike being addressed as ma’am (or sir, though that doesn’t really happen).
I’m not a very formal person, and I extend respect pretty much equally to anyone, unless you do something to lose it!
I’ll call you however you prefer, but I’ll default to First-name if you don’t explicitly let it be known what you’d prefer.
Around here, you don’t call someone “Sir” unless you’re trying to start a fight. I can’t tell you how many altercations I’ve seen that begin with the words, “Excuse me, sir, but…”
I say my yes mams and yes sirs. Pleases and thank yous. Pardon mes and excuse mes.
I’m southern. The Miss or Mr. First name was taught to us younguns.
It is not done to upset a person. It’s just how it’s done.
Eh. I don’t call many people by their names. I’m anxiety prone enough around people. Not gonna push it in the event I get it wrong.
Whether this the new way people go around inventing ways to be angry or older people just being testy, I don’t know?
I know I’ve felt a long long time not to mess with people for my own fearful reasons. I’m not ever comfortable out in public. I’ve had to force myself out for a bunch of years. I don’t have to now.
If the southern culture bothers you, well, what can I say? Don’t come here.
I promise there are worse things down here than being called Miss or Mr. First name. (hon, sugar, sweetie, bud, dude, yankee, asshole to name but a few)
The good things are the fried chicken, hospitality and (over?) friendliness.
I’m so so happy you don’t have my name. Now that would get anyone in the dumps.
no believe me if you get 15 calls a day about either the “new health options that the state of CA offers” or the " new affordable burial insurance plans offered by the state of CA " by someone in a Punjab call center you get rude as hell …
“For once, maybe someone will call me ‘sir’ without adding, ‘You’re making a scene.’”
Good for you. I am happy you have not had to deal with that.
Please don’t be so patronizing/condescending to others. I don’t need to have your permission or approval to have a life that’s different from yours.
I have. Different people have different experiences.
When email for everyone at a company became a thing in the 1990’s the morons who set up the email system made the middle initial field mandatory. Turns out several dozen people at the company lacked a middle name. The morons doubled-down and insisted that it was impossible (one actually thought it was a legal requirement that you have a middle name) and insisted that we use something. One person suggested an “X”. Apparently that was objectionable to a significant to the people who would be affected. The end result was that the email addressing system was re-written so that field was no longer mandatory.
But maybe you never had to deal with that particular issue.
Yes, actually there is. When the company I work for mandates I address all customers by their first name for what boiled down to that exact reason, by which I mean the corporate office told us that was the reason I know that that is the reason. Apparently enough customers complained that a couple months later the corporation rescinded that.
Because I understand that retail drones are almost always working from a script imposed from above I don’t give them a hard time.
On the other side of the sales counter, though … I have had people yell at me and swear at me for addressing them in a manner they don’t like, even though I have exactly zero means to read their minds. If you work retail you have to have a thick skin. That doesn’t mean any of us like being crapped on. We are forced to suppress our reactions to verbal abuse and harassment at work. You can’t win. Some people want to be called by their first names. Some by their surname. Some by a nickname. That might be a “normal” nickname like Ed or it might be Zaphod Beeblebrox. Some are paranoid whackos who don’t want you to call them anything at all.
Again, I’m glad you’ve lived such a sheltered life that you can be mind-boggled by it. Others have different experiences than you. Perhaps you’ve never worked retail.
We also get loons who don’t want to show their ID to buy age-restricted items. They seem to think the company gives a damn about anything other than whether or not the staff can sell this stuff to you without being arrested for doing so. (That is not an exaggeration - we have had people removed from the store in handcuffs for screwing up checking for ages). No, we really don’t save any information off your license. Not when we type information into the register (it’s just state that issued the ID and date of birth, I am NOT entering your name or driver’s license or whatever else you’re imaging into the register) and not when we scan the barcode on the back of your license (my non-cashier job at work has access to the raw data. I checked out of curiosity. The store really is only grabbing the state and the date of birth. Really. Truly.). Then you get the nutjobs who get upset if you compare the photo with the person in front of you to make sure it’s their license.
Retail jobs suck.
That’s sort of a problem when our customers don’t wear name tags. “Hey you” tends to be taken even more negatively than sir or ma’am. Ditto for “Lady” or “Guy”.
It is also not done in other places.
Maybe the best course is to follow the customs of the place you actually are rather than where you were when you were a child.
I most certainly don’t expect people to be fucking mind readers, particularly about that most sensitive of propositions. On the other hand, I sometimes use different pronouns after lunch, and almost ALWAYS after cocktails. I wear a little pin that I change to suit…
I’m no the type who gets too bothered by first vs. last name (though see below). But it does feel really weird when people use your name in situations where it is unnecessary, especially if I don’t know their name. I’m surprised more people don’t find it offputting when they do this.
Especially with all of the cases where it can go wrong. My first name is easy to mispronounce if you’ve not heard it before.
This did remind me of one thing, though. I do remember being tickled when my junior high principle would call me “Mr. Lastname,” unlike everyone else on the staff. It did feel a bit more respectful. (Though perhaps that’s because it reminded me of Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World.)
So I can at least sorta understand why that might feel better to some people.
I pretty much manage to avoid using terms like that in my day to day life. There’s no reason to refer to someone’s age or gender when selling them a carton of milk.
You can just say “Hey, there’s a sale on avocado…” Or “Excuse me, this coupon is expired”.
I do identify as female and use female pronouns and present as such, etc, but I never understood why it should matter while out and about on public. I fully realize this is a me problem. I don’t call people out or make a scene or anything, I just feel uncomfortable and try to move the conversation on. I don’t avoid places because of how people might address me, but I might find it annoying if I go.
Culturally, ma’am is pretty much only used as a sarcastic insult here, so there’s that too. I recognize that’s not the case elsewhere and would just put up with it, if I were to ever go to the US South, which honestly doesn’t seem probable unless work sends me.
This. At work if someone is complaining about something and I’m trying to explain the situation, I’ll use “ma’am” in an attempt to be polite. They respond as if I insulted them though.
Or saying “driver’s license and registration please” along with the “sir” in there someplace. 
Actually your comment reminded me of a one panel cartoon I saw once. Might have been in the New Yorker, but maybe not. The source is immaterial, but you get the idea of the tone.
A large, shaggy, none-too-smart looking dog is speaking to another much smaller pet. Cat or dog, I can’t remember which. But significantly smaller and somehow smarter looking.
The words read: “My name? Hmmm … ‘Down Boy’ I think.”
I was neither. I posted my experience. Please don’t Jr Mod me or put words in my mouth. I never once said or insinuated you needed my permission to have any experience, good or bad.
Your first post addressed all corporations generally, so your personal experience with one or two corporations can not be broad brushed to all all of them.
Now who’s being condescending? I’ve actually worked many retail jobs. I’ve been yelled at, lied to, lied about and fired for reasons that had no basis in truth. I’m sure I could match your unpleasant experiences, tale for tale - I just choose not to let them define me. Life isn’t fair and I know it.
Again, I recognize your right to think that strangers calling you by your first name without your permission is the worst thing ever, but that’s not my personal feeling. Nor do I understand why my positive outlook on life bothers you so.
While supervising a crew, I would occasionally include “sir” while addressing one of my workers – in a non-sarcastic tone. When a job needs to get done, the people doing it are as important as the person in control, and I like them to know that.