Formal / Informal

I was thinking recently about the demise of formal address.  Everyone in the world suddenly seems to be on a first-name basis.  I understand that this is an international phenomenon (in France there's more and more "tu," in Germany "du," and so forth), but it seems to me that over the past year or two it's become especially pronounced.  I wonder if it has to do in part with all the new, fast and casual ways we communicate: e-mail, texting, tweets... and then social networking sites like Facebook, where we're all "friends," and we seem to care much less about keeping business and social spheres separate. 

What I'm really referring to here in the U.S. is calling adult strangers who you are meeting in a business context by their first name.  I remember when I was a teenager, with a summer clerk job at my local library, I knew all the librarians as "Mrs. So & So.," with maybe one exception.  I would never have dreamed of calling them "Libby" or "Eleanore."  It just wasn't done.  Likewise my friends' parents were always "Mrs. and Mrs. So & So" to me... I realize now that I think about it that I don't even know some of my friends' parents' first names... friends who I've known for twenty years or more!

Yet when I worked at a large corporation, we were all expected to interact with one another on a first name basis, perhaps to reinforce the idea of a "flat" organizational structure (which of course couldn't possibly really be flat).  So even if you went to a meeting with a guy who was sixty and had been at the company for thirty five years, you were expected to say, "Hi, John!", which sometimes felt really strange.  The same was true of the CEO, not that any of us really were spending a lot of time with the CEO.  Still, he'd leave all of us employees (how ever many thousands of us) voicemail messages that ran along the lines of: "This is [first name], with a message to ALL of [company name].  I'm in [insert far-away-locale] today, and... blah blah blah."  

And now, over the past year or so, I'm noticing that when I go to a bank, the teller will say, "thank you Elizabeth!" when I'm done with the transaction.  Or if I call t-mobile to ask for some information about my cellphone, the person at the help desk will also say, "How may I help you today, Elizabeth?"  Whereas after early adolescence I'd gotten very used to being called "Miss," or "M'am," or even "Ms. So & So."

Maybe I'm turning into an old crank, but it irks me!  It's not that I expect them to be oh-so-respectful of me, but what bothers me is that I don't know them, and I will never know them and may never speak to them them again, so why are they addressing me this way?  It's too familiar, it disregards all of the polite barriers that acknowledge that we're only speaking to each other because we're doing business.  And if the bank teller's name tag said "Bertha Jones," I would never call her Bertha, I would call her "Ms. Jones."  Does that mean I'm becoming an old fogey very prematurely?

As usual, I have the feeling that I'd like to pick up the reins of this change in manners and bring it to a screeching halt.  I want these strangers to stop calling me by my given name, I find it to be an invasion of privacy!  But as usual, I seem to be swimming against the current.  The fact that employees at banks and so forth are being directed to do this must mean that big companies have done some sort of consumer research and found that people like to be called by their given names.  Which somehow I can't quite believe.  I may be 35, not 25, but there are still far more adults who are older than I am than adults who are younger than I am... and do all these other grown-ups really want to be called "Joe" and "Alice" and "Gregory" by everyone they interact with during the day?  Of course, I'm not wishing that we go back to the 19th century and have to address even friends of friends as "Miss this" or "Mr. that."  But I do think there's something to be said for maintaining some barriers!  

Well, I'm really just venting - because obviously this change is going to happen, and soon we'll do away with saying Mr. President too, and after that it will be just like Lord of the Flies...

I'm joking...

(Probably...)

Comments

[Alex]

It is the same in the colleges and universities. My students call me by my first name, and address me in email this way: "Hi (first name),"
I'm friendly with some of my professors from college and still address them as Ms. (last name). I think it is the times, not a show of disrespect or invasion of privacy. I agree with you completely.

[Awake]

Ack - I didn't realize that college students were addressing professors this way as well! I too always called my professors "Mr. So & So," or even "Professor So & So." Times are changing...