Same here… I was doing a phone interview for a job while I was in college, and the recruiter repeatedly asked me if I was in the military since I followed all one word answers with “sir”. I tried to not do it after he mentioned it, but I couldn’t stop. Never heard from that job again.
It’s one of those “polite” things. 
She was being oversensitive.
The first time someone called me “ma’aam” (young woman in a shoe store, around 1993–I was about 36?), I was taken aback–obviously, since I still remember it. But it’s meant to be a polite thing, right? No reason to get annoyed by it.
Oh, I’m very good with my pleases and thankyous, and I give the respect I expect to receive. I just don’t do deference.
Actually, in areas were it’s not commonly used, women will have had the experience of being called ma’am in a way that clearly implied that the speaker would really rather be saying bitch, but was either too polite or otherwise not in a position to do so. Such as it creaping into the replies of the clerk at the returns counter the third time she explains why the return isn’t possible, when it wasn’t there the first two times she explained.
Also, if she’s old enough, she’s heard that special condescending use of ma’am that announces that women are incompetent, but a polite man must humor the sweet little dears.
I was actually going to suggest that calling a woman under 50 “ma’am” north of the M-D line is tantamount to calling her a bitch. An old bitch. 
I grew up in Pennsylvania (albeit the southern half of the state- I live outside Philadelphia now) and I’ve never had a problem with it or had someone seem offended that I’d said it. Maybe it’s something that becomes more rude the farther north you go?
Born and bred Northener, but into a military family. My dad and other men older than myself (bosses, teachers, professors, people I am serving in a job, whatever) are all “sir.” My mom and women older than I am (bosses, teachers, professors, people I am serving in a job, etc.) are all “ma’am.” But usually only when giving a one-word answer–“yes sir, no ma’am, thank you sir, thank you ma’am.”
Or, when I was in serious deep shit with my folks. “Did you break my paperweight and bury it in the yard? DID YOU?” “…yes sir.” “Go to your room until I come up there to Speak With You!” “yes ma’am.”
No one has ever made a comment to me about using it in this way.
I think it may also be related to my family’s point of “Don’t Call Your Mother ‘She’ Because It’s Terribly Disrespectful.”
Actually, I think “Yes, sir” would have been funnier.
I think you’re right.
We’ve had threads on this before and it was mostly a geographical thing. More rural/southern folks tended to use “ma’am” and more urban/northern folks tended to not use “ma’am”.
Same here, but I didn’t get it from the military - I got it from judo, where whoever is leading the class is sensei, sir, or ma’am. Every farging time, if you value your life. And it is a hard habit to break.
My rule of thumb is that it is better to start formal and become more familiar, although I have had people take it the wrong way no matter what I did.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve spent most of my life in Texas, and it seems to be a rural Southern blue collar thing…that is, the more a person falls into that category, the more likely s/he will use “ma’am” as a term of respect for any woman. However, if a person is urban or white collar or a damyankee, then “ma’am” starts moving from being a term of respect to being a term that one can use to depict that a particular woman is old, or a bitch, or an old bitch. It’s like “Bless your heart” in some ways, because it can be used nicely OR it can be used sarcastically.
I’m 53, and I vastly prefer not to be called “ma’am”. I’m not going to tell this to every store clerk and food server that I come in contact with, but if it’s a co-worker who calls me “ma’am”, then I’m going to express my preference since the situation is likely to recur. Should the woman in the OP not have stated her preference? Was she supposed to just put up with it, and have it grate on her every time he called her ma’am? I don’t think so.
Huh. I’m 25 and live in PA, and I like being called “ma’am”, because it makes me feel that I’m being seen and addressed as a fully mature woman. But then I was raised by the son of Texan parents who used “sir” and “ma’am” frequently as terms of respect for any adult. Plenty of people around here use these honorifics, and I do sometimes as well. No one has ever seemed to be offended by it.
How would you prefer to be addressed?
My point was that I just don’t understand the hosility over the label in the first place. Perhaps it is naive of me.
I get it from some of my Southern sorority sisters, who call our much older sisters “Miss ____” as a term of respect; “Miss Louise” and “Miss Peggy” are in their 80s and even “Miss Mary Jane” who is in her early 90s, and when we have conventions even some of the Yankee girls have started picking up on that usage. But when you’re in your 40s or 50s and the Louisiana/Texas girls are calling you “Miss Julie,” you can bet it’s with snotty intent.
“She Who Must Be Obeyed”, “Creature of the Night”, “Mistress of All Evil”, or “Goddess” are all good.
Or you can call me Lynn or Ms Bodoni.
It is a show of respect not to use someones first name until they say go ahead, and feel familair enough to. Only once has someone called me that, it was someone I knew and we’d met not long before, and he used it on the phone. I wasn’t offended, but I told him to call me Bertha.
(not really, but my real first name)
Note: I was a bit older than he, and if someone my age used it, it would be considered a sortof insult, implying I was much older than they.
Yes, Ma’am.