What the heck is with this?? I don’t turn 30 'till NEXT year. I go to the Subway sandwich shop the other day and the tattoo’d guy with the stretched out earlobe hoop thingies behind the counter kept calling me Sir. He couldn’t even make a freakin sandwich right and I had to keep correcting him. “I’m sorry Sir, I’m right on it Sir, thank you Sir, Have a nice day Sir.” Grrr!! I’m not a Sir, Sirs are stately and old. Thats not me.
HOWEVER! To top it off there is this HOT little alternative looking chick at my work, colored hair, occasionally mohawked, punk cloths, kick ass little figure, probably all of 18. OK, for A SHORT TIME I was doing something that looked like I was half way important at my work and had a half way important sounding title, “Presidential escalations”. Sounds nice but it wasnt much more then a glorified position of what everyone else was doing. She started calling me Mr. Whammo (where Whammo takes the place of my last name). OH NO NO NO NO NO, that doesn’t work at all, and to top it off I think she was doing it to be snide!
Gack! Nobody HERE or anyone that KNOWS me would say these things… is this a sign that I no longer fit in with the younger generation? I was the highschool heavy metal freak man, the guy who could SNAP at any moment.
Whats happened? It gets better doesn’t it? tell me it gets better!! :(
There are really no other formal way to address someone whose name you don’t know or can’t remember. It’s either, mister or sir. Otherwise it’s bro, hey, dude, hey buddy, or son.
I admit it makes me feel old but I say it all the time to anyone that looks older than me.
Frankly, I like it.
On looks alone, you might think that the guy at the sandwich shop with the earlobe-hole all stretched out might not have the manners to refer to you as such. But, it seems he does.
It’s polite.
It’s proper.
It’s even somewhat expected.
When I was 20 and someone called me “Sir”, I took it as a complement and a sign of excellent child-rearing on the part of the parents.
Now that I’m 40, I appreciate it even more.
I think most folk need a bit more practice in the use of good manners.
Sir or Ma’am is the polite way to refer to someone whose name you do not know. I got called “Miss” all through my last restaurant experience and found it annoying. I’m 35 and married. Geez. If anyone’s entitled to Ma’am, it ought to be me…I kept wondering if the young man waiting on me was sucking up to get a better tip. Yes, sometimes Ma’am makes me feel old, but it’s a lot less annoying than Miss…
I like being called “Sir”. It’s this old fashioned idea called manners.
My pet peeve, however, is being called by my first name by a person whose first name I don’t know, eg. when I’ve just filled out a form and given it to a clerk, etc. Normally, I don’t mind informality, but I think these people are taking too much of a liberty.
Good God Whammo! Is someone slipping estrogen into your coffee? You are a 29 year old MAN! You’ll probably have a few gray hairs in 5 or 6 years. Most men your age have serious responsibilies and many are starting or have started families. Enough with the Peter Pan angst it’s incredibly unbecoming. It’s time to take up the mantle of a mature male who proper address is correctly and politely "sir’.
Darn right they’re just being respectful. I mean, they don’t know you, so they’ve gotta call you something, right? Not like here, where everyone just spits and makes the sign of the horns when they see you.
You think it’s weird when you do a double take on being called “Ma’am” (or “Sir,” as the case may be)? A few months ago I jumped at being called “Miss” – I’d gotten so used to being Ma’amed. Urk.
If it makes you feel better, I call everyone “kiddo” or “kid”. Thank ******** (insert diety name or natural process name here) I don’t work in the service industry.
Wait. I do… ::::looks at her Scylla Fun Squad nametag:::::
No, it doesn’t get any better. I’m 31 and get ma’am’d more than I get miss’d. I usually whine “I’m too young to be a ‘ma’am’”, and slink out where ever I was depressed for the day.
On the other hand, I get carded for cigarettes a lot still.
Last weekend someone called me “miss” and I thanked him for it!
Or “Listen up, punk!”, the traditional way of addressing anyone who looks younger than you, whilst at the same time seems incapable of beating the snot out of you.
