First names with everyone: peers, superiors, inferiors. Although my student worker calls my supervisor “Miss [First name],” which is cute.
Small university, 400 employees, first name basis with everybody except the President – and he doesn’t insist on it, it’s just a courtesy some of us extend.
I wonder how many really good bosses insist on being called “Mr” or some other honorific. I read that a lot of long time Washington Redskins employees knew that they were in trouble as soon as Dan Snyder bought the team and let everyone know that he was “Mr. Snyder,” not “Dan.”
I worked in a prison. Due to people not wanted prisoners to overhear and know their first names, people almost always called each other by their last name with the occasional exceptions of people who had nicknames.
First name among peers, and Mr/Mrs+first name to people either above or below you on the company hierarchy.
I am a nurse, and where I work all the doctors go by Firstname. 20 years in health services has conditioned me to say DOCTOR, but I get corrected by them. I saw one Doctor out in the community and he introduced himself to my 9 year old as “Firstname”, which kind of bothers me. It is a changing world, but I do like to teach my son to call people by titles. I think the only titles he uses are Mr or Mrs or Miss for his teachers.
My co workers of course we call each other by first names, except we have a Care Aide and an RN with the same first name (with different culture, difficult tor me to pronounce last names) and they are Felice and Nurse Felice. One place I worked had two girls with the same first name and last name, one worked strictly graveyards, so one was Sally Midnight and one was “not Sally Midnight; the other one.”
I work in a 9-1-1 center. In our office it is all by first name, from the top to the bottom. Outside of our office it is still first name basis for all the public officials with oversight going up a few level. However the Governor is referred to as Governor [Lastname].
All day long we are dealing with police who are usually referred to as Rank Lastname or just Lastname but more commonly by badge number. We have a half dozen PC Smiths and several Sgt Smiths and even three Inspector Smiths, but each one has a unique badge number.
Since we are responsible for keeping track of which officers attend a report it is much easier to use badge numbers, lest the wrong PC Smith gets called to give a statement in relation to a report he never attended.
There are 20,000 employees in my company and the culture is first names all the way up. Even the board members are referred to by their first names in conversation.
Nicknames are also used in cases where pronunciation or differentiating between our crop of Jason, Jeff and Stevens are required.
The Chief of Police comes through where I work semi-regularly. I love it when he does, because I figure I’m safe calling him if no one else “Chief.”
First name basis, all the way up the food chain. I call my boss’s boss’s bosses by their first names. Of course, it helps that one of the bosses wife has been my assistant for the last 25 years.
I’m in an executive branch agency with several thousand people. My interactions with the director of our agency were too minimal to need to address him any which way. (We currently don’t have a director - Obama hasn’t appointed a new one after the old one left, and the GOP would probably filibuster the nomination if he did.) But I wouldn’t hesitate to address anyone else by their first name.
I don’t understand this. I’ve had several people say similar things - all of whom were old enough to be my parent. You never expect to be called ‘Mr.’? Not by a doctor, or in a grocery store, NEVER?
I’m an old fuddy duddy who expects to be called Ms. Lastname by children, but it never works that way anymore.
We address each other by first names. Even the CEO and SVP/Eng. At board meetings it may be different, but I doubt I’ll ever attend one so it’s moot. I’m a software developer in the SFBA, since demographic is probably relevant to the question.
At my last job, it was first names. At my current job it is mostly first names with the occasional “hey, motherfucker” thrown in.
Boggle. Again, fuddy duddy but I can’t imagine that happening in a workplace. I think I’ve said the f-word once and it was in private to my boss about some bad situation.
Office of about 50-75 people, which includes shift workers, plus some colleagues from our Japan corporate office. Everyone by first name (“name-san” for our Japanese colleagues, though I use just “name” for some of them if I talk with them a lot, I really don’t know if that really upsets them or not). Co-worker friends that we are good buddies with, we just call them by their last names (like a sports team) or nicknames.
Academic. We refer to each other as Doctor Lastname if students are around. Otherwise, by first name.
I work in a hospital and it’s pretty much all first names. Some of the consultants from other specialties get Dr Lastname but usually because we don’t know their given names.
I’ve worked here, off and on, since 1980 and I’m not entirely comfortable with the creeping informality. The last time I came back, I had the greatest difficulty calling one of the consultants ‘Mary’ since she’d been known to me as Dr Lastname since I first worked here. I found myself not calling her anything, which was rude, so I had to switch to calling her Mary.
Honorific plus last name if there are students around, especially if anyone present is teaching. One of the labs also calls me by honorific plus last name. Really, for many I think saying my last name is easier than my real name.
Supervisors and peers call me by my first name. Students can, too, so long as I’m not their teacher at that time.
I’d rather be addressed by my last name than my first name (without the honorific). I’d prefer only real friends and family use my first name.
At my current job, I address everyone I speak to by their first name, from the big cheese owner of everything (ok, I’ve only met him once, but we were told to call him by his first name) to the vice president and regional managers, as well as my coworkers.
A few years ago, I worked for a company where three people were expected to be addressed as Mister. It was a bit odd for me, coming from my previous job at a large investment firm, where as a lowly switchboard operator I referred to even the most senior executives by their first names, to be told I had to use Mister now for certain people.
I was ok with the owner and the elderly partner - it seemed appropriate and respectful, but I totally resented having to address the smug, condescending asshole that was our company lawyer as Mr. Lastname. I so wanted to insist on him calling me Miss Lastname - hey, if we’re going to insist on formality… but I needed my job and just sucked it up.