[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Hal, you of all people should know. You’ve started some great threads here. Are you known as Hal the Thread-Starter? You have a beautiful baby. Are you known as Hal the Father? You used to be the Evil Overlord who created the Squick. Are you known as the Creator of the Squick?
But you walked away from your computer for five minutes…
[/QUOTE]
…and they call you Hal the Computer-Walker-Awayer-Fromer?
You know, where I’m from it’s so common that people call me sweetie/honey/babe/dear that I don’t even notice it anymore. It’s just the way life is on the island where I grew up.
Except when the person is my age or younger. That always kind of makes me want to take a step back and make a Scooby-Doo-style puzzled noise.
But the only time it really makes me mad is when the person is obviously pissed at me, and still calling me sweetie. You may dispense with the false niceties, thanks!
[QUOTE=Dracona]
Whenever I get a young, timid, and very new employee on the phone, I wind up responding to one of the strings of apologies with:
“That’s okay, sweetie. I’m just glad you’re helping. Take your time. I’ve done customer service before, and I’m not in a hurry.”
I never thought I was being offensive. 
[/QUOTE]
Actually, that’s pretty nice. I’m wouldn’t be offended by that, if I was new. (But I’m not. I think at this point I’m officially seasoned, as I can take care of about 98% of problems people would call me about.)
What I object to is when I say “How can I help you today, ma’am?”, I get “Baby, I’m having a problem. Do you think you can help me with it, honey? I’ve got all of the information right here, sugar.” Ad nauseum. Literally.
The difference b/t what they say and what you say is that one of the responses sounds like you’re aware that the person on the other end is a human being, and the other sounds like you’re aware that the person on the other end is mentally handicapped. Guess which one is which?