To want to be called "Mrs So-and-so" by a teenage shop assistant, not by my first name?

[YouDontKnowMeFromAdam]

I've had few back and forward phone calls with a young shop assitant about whether my delivery has arrived. I met her in person in the shop originally and she is not over 20. She has recently rang to say (finally!) it's ready for collection but I realised what it was about her that annoyed me - she called me by my first name, several times.

I'm 34, so not exactly ancient (I like to think ) , and I don't quite know why it grated. But it did.

AIBU?

do not understand how your ages come into this?

er 1950s are

YANBU - it's polite to address you by your title, until such time as you say otherwise. Young folk these days have no manners.

wanders off, sniffing

Don't be so pompous. She was just being friendly. Or maybe... she did it deliberately to annoy you because she was fed up with all the phone calls.

Agree absolutely with cat64.

Interestingly, a friend of mine with the title "Lady" never seems to encounter this problem ......

It's a respect thing (excuse me sounding like some bad-ass home bhoy). And I do think the ages of both of us come into it. I bet she'd have called me Mrs Battleaxe, not Hortensia if I'd have been 70. She did seem quite over confident.

But maybe I should be pleased she considered me a contempory not a Hortensia

My first thought was that you must be elderly

But thinking about it, I don't think either of your ages is the issue, it's an overfamilairity thing, which I can't bear.

My husband has a habit of shortening the names of people he barely knows and referring to their characters as though he's known them for years.....drives me absolutely mad. Eurgh. Can't bear it.

I can't see the problem to be honest, so will have to say YABU.

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest if someone used my first name, it is my name after all.

I do cringe when people use shortened versiosn of peoples names when they don't even really know them though. Like "Matty" for Matthew etc.

YANBU-she´s not a friend!

i hate being called Mrs, much prefer first name being used

You say her being over confidant like its a bad thing. If she had been surly and unhelpful you would of moaned about that, but instead it sounds like she helped in a pleasant manner over a complicated issue at a stressful time of year. Sometimes sales assistants just cant win!

Are you really bothered by that? Blimey. I'm 36 and would be offended if I was called Mrs...

Oh I like being called "Mrs" and I'm 28. I can take being called by my first name if it is done politely, but when it is done with nauseating overfamiliarity then it really grates.

Equally I hate it when people try to elongate my first name after I have introduced myself. There is no need to elongate my name as the name I just introduced myself as is my actual name. Don't shorten it either, because that really jangles my nerves with its overfamiliarity.

Actually, just call me love or sweetheart. I don't mind that.

i like ma'am
i get that at work.

If someone is polite and efficient I let them get away with first name.

If they piss me off then i ask them to call me Mrs Pennies. It makes them feel uncomfortable and serves them right for being crap IMO.

The latter has only ever occurred about twice though.

Yes I think it's the overfamiliarity of it. And also, as I said in the OP (no one can accuse me of stealth-ness ) it was several times. Not just once, but at the end of each sentence.

Maybe it wasn't the actual name (formal or not) on reflection. But having it repeated over and over in a manner which can be patronising. All the more so from a teenager.

ma'am?! blimey that's american. Like grown men calling others 'sir' - weird.

The over use of my name would grate on me, regardles of whether they used my first name or my mrs name.

Comes across as quite creepy/arse licky.

I work in a forward-facing-role and often call men of all ages "sir". It's very short, very polite and very easy. There's nothing quite equivilent for women.

She looked about 16 so say a 6-year margin of error puts at her at between 10 and 22. Admittedly the top end of that range is not officially a teenager.

I think the age thing is relevant because it's about hierarchy. I beat her on age and I beat her on being customer-not-assistant. I don't usually rate my position relevant to everyone I meet on a similar scale (extra 10 points to me if they're wearing a shellsuit)... actually scrub that, I think I do. What I don't neccesarily do is expect them to pick one of 6 modes of address on a sliding scale dependant on a mutually agreed relativity to each other.

Yanbu. Completely agree. And I am 47 and if I was that shop assistant ringing you and I had clocked that you were 15 or 20 or 25 years younger than me I would still call you "Mrs YDKMFA" too. She is not your friend or even an aquaintance. I really couldn't agree more. Yanbu yanbu yanbu.

Hm, tough one... i can see that as a shop assistant she would to bring up the decency to be polite to her customers, and therefore call you mrs YouDontKnowMe.

On the other hand, if your order is under [Firstname] YouDontKnowMe (and it would be: how else would she know your first name?) you cannot really blame her for calling you by your first name, as she might be nervous addressing you with Dr, Mrs, Miss or Mzzzz -or whatever applicable, how is she to know- and getting it wrong. Loads of people get quite worked up about that you know...

Or maybe- like me- you've got a particuluarly difficult -to pronounce- surname, and she'd rather call you by your first name than mispronounce your last.

Just be glad you're not called 'love' or -worse- 'mate', which I get at work regularly