I was an engineering student not very long ago, and I got used to addressing professors as they requested. If they wanted to be called Dr. So-and-so, that’s what I called them. If they wanted to be called First-name, that’s what I called them. It seemed to me to be a matter of respecting a person’s wishes, and not that big a deal to address them in the manner they most preferred.
Fast-forward to the present day and I work in a place where my wishes as to what I’d prefer to be called (anything more respectful than ‘Hey, Asshole!’) are completely ignored. Not, mind you, by those whose educations I have some responsibility for. They address me as I see fit, and that’s the way I like it.
The people who see red in my being addressed by first name: administration. They consider it to be a major offense, unprofessional, to address me as anything less formal than Ms. Last-name. I can honestly say that being addressed as Ms. Last-name grates on my nerves. The sound of it, to me, is equivalent to that of long acrylic nails running across a chalkboard.
Does this matter to those in the carpeted offices? Of course not. To them, being professional isn’t about having good rapport and making sure the students actually learn something; it’s about titles and punctuation.
That being said, I’ve gotten rather casual e-mail from students. They send me jokes and other such things and I don’t mind it at all. I rather like it. However, I’d probably be horrified if I got an e-mail like the one in the OP. I like to be able to read what someone else is saying in an e-mail, and let’s face it, punctuation matters.
Sorry for the major tangent, but I’m trying to deal with how to get ‘administration’ to understand that my wishes are to be treated like a human being by my students instead of some kind of cold, impersonal dispenser of information.
Just what the hell is wrong with calling me First-name instead of Ms. Last-name if that’s the manner of address I prefer?
