What are the board's thoughts on using "ma'am" or "sir" in the workplace?

Would love to know whether you do or don't, why, what industry you work in, and whether you work in the south.

Let it go dude.

I'm from Texas, so I call people ma'am and sir. The cleaning lady, my employees, my boss, the owner, doesn't matter.

not anymore.. at least not at work. moved to OR from TX about 4 years ago, but it has more to do with my age relative to my colleagues versus not being in the south.

outside of work, yes.

I say it at work & away from work. Live in Texas. Work at a wholesale nursery. It was the way I was raised & reinforced for 4 years in the Corps of Cadets.

It is a good habit to have!

Yes, this post not withstanding

I travel for a living and do it everywhere regardless of who I'm speaking to. Most people get a kick out of it and appreciate the manners.

I used to always say yes mam/sir then I worked in a different state. A few people seemed offended when I referred them as mam, like I was calling them old or something. They'd tell me not to call them that. I trained myself to stop saying it.

I worked for a short time with a large tech company in Austin and we were encouraged to not say yes ma'am/no ma'am and yes sir/no sir because you dont always know how people identify. Instead we were asked to just say yes thank you/no thank you.

GT_Aggie2015 said:

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I worked for a short time with a large tech company in Austin and we were encouraged to not say yes ma'am/no ma'am and yes sir/no sir because you dont always know how people identify. Instead we were asked to just say yes thank you/no thank you.

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Found the problem...

Always have. State or local government in Texas. I don't really change outside of Texas. Oddly enough, my nieces amd nephews in Vermont also say it.

Yep, at home, at work, wherever. When I lived in AZ people sometimes got offended or somewhat bothered by it, didn't let it bother me much and never stopped doing it. People used to also kind of look at me funny if I took a few extra seconds to hold a door open for them at a convenience store or wherever too.

I don't care what any policy is or what people choose to identify themselves as. I go through life my way, don't care a whole lot if my old fashioned values or upbringing bothers them or is not en vogue.

It makes me a little sad that this question even has to be asked. But then again, we have men wearing pants that are clearly 1 size too small, calling them 'skinny jeans' and thinking its stylish or OK.

Yes...I say sir and ma'am until I'm requested not to do it. If I ever get a gender questionable person, I just make my best guess. If they get pissed off (which hasn't happened) I have full intention of going full trailer park..."Oh, ****, my bad, thought you were a dude."

Esteban du Plantier said:

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I'm from Texas, so I call people ma'am and sir. The cleaning lady, my employees, my boss, the owner, doesn't matter.

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This. I say it professionally and publicly as a form of respect.

BrazosDog02 said:

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It makes me a little sad that this question even has to be asked. But then again, we have men wearing pants that are clearly 1 size too small, calling them 'skinny jeans' and thinking its stylish or OK.

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Or some of us just aren't ready to give up on that size just yet.

Absolutely.

Yes, but I work on Wall Street.

bam02 said:

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Yes, but I work on Wall Street.

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Oh yeah, is that so? Buy side or sell side?

The only time I call someone sir or maam is when there is a very clear and substantial difference in our social classes and I want to make it clear that i do not view us as anything close to peers and that they had better understand that as well.

Ironically, this is typically done when addressing this below me. Wait staff and other help get addressed as sir ma'am.

Duncan Idaho said:

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The only time I call someone sir or maam is when there is a very clear and substantial difference in our social classes and I want to make it clear that i do not view us as anything close to peers and that they had better understand that as well.

Ironically, this is typically done when addressing this below me. Wait staff and other help get addressed as sir ma'am.

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Are you a terrible ****** bag in real life, or does it just come across that way on the digital screen?

Not only is it a Texas thing but it is an Aggie thing.

I've had more people say "you Aggies are so polite, y'all always say ma'am and sir!"

Not that non Aggies don't, but I hear Aggies do it a lot more than anyone else. That makes me proud.

My father taught me that I was to always use ma'am/sir when addressing anyone older than me.

No sir.

BlueDeviledAg said:

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bam02 said:

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Yes, but I work on Wall Street.

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Oh yeah, is that so? Buy side or sell side?

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I'm an importer/exporter.

BlueDeviledAg said:

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bam02 said:

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Yes, but I work on Wall Street.

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Oh yeah, is that so? Buy side or sell side?

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You're just the absolute worst kind of person, unless this is the most extended multi-board troll ever.

I've been a currency & commodity trader, worked both sides of deals, been back to business school, and work at management consulting firm for now. People like you are almost exclusive to bulge brackets, usually in the NYC office. Almost exclusively people who have never done anything but banking, especially at the lower levels who get an inflated ego.

And yes, I have said sir and ma'am plenty. Every time? No. But some of the time.

The "absolute worst kind of person" is someone who acts like they know everything there is to know and that only their way is correct, and then proceeds to attempt to tackily attack others on message boards that have opinions and experiences different from their own.

So you've been a commodities trader, went to bschool, and work at a management consulting firm. DuncanIdaho also went to bschool, and clearly has a differing opinion on this as well.

If this goes beyond the "ma'am" and "sir" argument and is just you looking to lash out at bulge bracketers or millennial bankers, then call it for what it is. Good lord.

I wasn't saying what is right or wrong. My calling you out wasn't about you or what you do. It was about how you went about phrasing this question after the GB thread and snarkily calling out someone on buy-side/sell-side comment later in the thread. On the other thread you were basically arguing that people were wrong because of your single experience. That's where the experience comment came from, seemed like from your view anyone with a differing opinion was "wrong" or being looked down on (exactly what you just called out in your post). So I responded with snark in kind and that's the "type of person" I was referring to.

If you didn''t mean it like that, then my apologies.

Everyone comes at these things through their own perspective and it's usually a sliding scale of how "right" they are. If you notice, I gave my experience and opinion on "sir/ma'am" for you at the end after giving my background to show you after following a very different path and plenty outside the south, I had a very different experience from you. But the only people that were ever elitist about things like this or assumed they knew everything or got mad were the people I described at bulge brackets in the NE (where I worked).

But I digress. Internet argument #1 for the day.

CJS4715 said:

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BrazosDog02 said:

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It makes me a little sad that this question even has to be asked. But then again, we have men wearing pants that are clearly 1 size too small, calling them 'skinny jeans' and thinking its stylish or OK.

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Or some of us just aren't ready to give up on that size just yet.

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Oh, it's easy to tell the two types of people apart. The ones you are speaking about still comb their hair and don't look like they just woke up. Bedhead is NOT a style, it's a statement of apathy.

I took the initial Wall Street comment as a snarky response to my posts about NYC finance on the other board. My buy-side/sell-side question was to clarify whether he/she works in finance, which we found out they in fact don't (to my point).
Moving on.

Psst I was clearly joking.

That's what I was afraid of.

You were pretty convincing at first...

GT_Aggie2015 said:

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I worked for a short time with a large tech company in Austin and we were encouraged to not say yes ma'am/no ma'am and yes sir/no sir because you dont always know how people identify. Instead we were asked to just say yes thank you/no thank you.

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Occasionally, but never in an "acknowledging someone else's superiority" way. I'm most likely to do it when someone could potentially think that I don't respect their contribution and least likely to do it when I'm addressing someone who outranks me, but 90% of the time it's a reflex left over from my upbringing.

My immediate colleagues that are my age 30's and younger I don't. We have more of a friend relationship and work together well.

Pretty much everybody else I do.

Industry: very large chemical plant