Response to "All set, hon?"

What a huge amount of comments we got on the question of whether or not it is appropriate for a clerk/server/etc. to address a customer as "sweetie" or "hon"!

Bill Kelly started off the discussion with an awesome "First!" comment:

Welcome to Quincy, Massachusetts!

Indeed. A fair number of folks weighed in on the "they're just being nice," "don't get your panties in a wad",* "pick your battles" side. Fine, that's a reasonable point of view. But while we don't sweat the small stuff in ConductLand, we do dissect it for every nuance of insight or wit it might provide us! So while the "whatever" crowd may have a reasonable point, we're not going to play with them anymore.

Meg C summarized the "anti" view well:

Unless you know them well, I think using the term sweetie or hon is inappropriate. It's unprofessional and infantilizes both women and the elderly. A gentleman of the same age would more likely be called "Sir" in the same circumstances.

We don't know the gender of the LW, but according to Reverie, Meg's prediction is correct:

I work in a male-dominated area, and frequently people who don't expect to hear a woman's voice will call and say "sir". The minute I respond and they hear my obviously female voice they switch to "honey" or "sweetie" or "dear." If you would call a man "sir" then the appropriate thing to call me is ma'am, not sweetie. Sweetie is fine in the grocery store. It's not fine when I'm in a position of authority and deserve the same respect as the male coworker sitting alongside me.

(Although, Grayguy says it's no bed of roses for older men, either: "You know what's worse? 'May i help you young man.' I'm pushing seventy. The phrase shouldn't be used on anyone over eleven." Agreed!)

Jlen defended, and correctly in my view, the anti-hons while acknowledging the difficult situation servers etc. are put in:

I'm disturbed a bit by the posters who say variations of "you're an elitist jerk if you don't like being called hon," or "this is so trivial, get a life." People are allowed to have preferences for how they are referred to, and there is nothing wrong, elitist, or trivial about it. We all have preferred modes of address.

The problem is that we can't expect strangers to know those preferred modes of address; some are offended at "ma'am," some at "hon," some at the use of first names. That puts servers and retail help in a difficult position, as they have to refer to us customers somehow. So I assume that servers and retail help simply use the mode of address that they find most natural for themselves. I usually do not correct anyone who calls me "sweetie" (though I'd rather not be called sweetie by men who are not my husband). But if in a particular circumstance or context it bothers me enough, I simply ask, politely, that they use my name (and I would of course remind them what my name is).

Be prepared to remind them frequently. A fair amount of "honning" has to be the result of that awkward feeling that I know I should know your name by now, but I still don't. (If you are a highly observant person, you can train yourself to recognize that microsecond of panic that crosses a person's face when they recognize you and then realize they don't know your name. If you are a highly controlled person, you can stop that expression before it flits across your own face. I'm only up to stage 1 myself.) As Verena points out:

Even if you show your face somewhere regularly, sometimes public employees can't learn everyone's names, and then there has to be the awkward "I'm sorry, I know your face {sweetie} but I forgot your name for the seventeenth time."

I work with a lot of people whose names I will never learn, especially kids, and if I need to get their attention I'll call them "Mr. Pink Shirt" or "Miss Stripey Shorts". I would think it hilarious if the checkout clerk at the supermarket had the eye and sense of humor to call me Miss Green Tank Top or Miss Cowboy Hat, both of which I wear regularly to the grocery store.

That's actually not a bad solution, but for the love of all that's holy if you are going to address someone by their physical appearance, stick to their clothes.

MelissaJane brought up a particularly icky version:

I experience a variation of this which I don't much like, but understand: everyone in my pediatrician's office - and other places which cater to my kids - calls me Mom. I get that the nurses, PAs, secretaries, etc. can't learn everyone's names, and that even looking down at the chart and noticing that my kids' last name is Smith doesn't help them know whether or not my name is Mrs. Smith, or Ms. Smith-Jones, or whatever. But it still kind of weirds me out to have all these random people say "OK Mom, we're ready for you now," "Mom, take his diaper off and put him on the scale," "Ellen, please write Mom a prescription for amoxycillin."

If pediatricians had done that to the ConductMom I think I would have been raised Christian Scientist! She hates being called "Mom" by anyone but me and once threw an encyclopedia salesmen out of our house for doing just that. Good for her.

Of course, no discussion on proper forms of address would be complete without a skirmish of the ma'am wars. I'm going to let MelissaJane have the final word on this one, too, because she is right:

See, I just don't have any sympathy for the people who say that being called ma'am makes them feel old. The fact that you are insecure about the aging process, and dislike having attention called to the fact that you are no longer 18, does not make calling you ma'am rude. What IS the polite form of address you'd prefer, for heaven's sake? Madam? Madame? Your Youthful Hipness? Pity the poor servers and clerks, for they can do no right here.

And I'm giving the final commenter word overall to DMajor:

When waitresses and salesladies call me "hon" I just pretend they are calling me "Hun" -- as in "Attila the ~". This makes me feel fierce and legendarily powerful. I nod in a thoughtful manner, wish them a good day, and spare them my awesome and terrible wrath, which I'm sure they appreciate.

My own bottom line? The whole issue is completely skunked by race, gender, geography, and class. There isn't anything that customers can be called that won't offend some of them, that's clear. I'm a strong proponent of "sir" and "ma'am" myself, but I can't pretend people who hate those terms don't exist, and if I were a clerk, I'd have to find something to call them. So give people in public-facing jobs the benefit of your patience and doubt, as always. And those with public-facing jobs should do their best to treat customers as people. If there's genuine acknowledgment and respect both ways, whatever terms of address are used will seem perfectly natural.