At the (admittedly small) risk of starting an online fracas, I'm going to comment on another reply I got tonight, this one from Robin Margolis, my co-conspirator in http://www.emunahavot.net.
Robin writes:
My office's templates show the wave of the future -- everyone addressed as just "Dear J.R. Wilheim," unless they have a professional title like Esq., Dr., Professor, Captain, Bishop, etc.
I continue to hold out for Mr. and Ms., but I will be swept aside on this matter in 20 years.
I suppose this brings up the opposite situation Leah Silberman Jenner chose to bring up--namely, using someone's first name where it isn't warranted. Unlike the issues surrounding Mrs. Rhett Butler, this one is equally bad for men and women.
The minute I get a piece of mail that begins, "Dear Jeffrey Wilheim...", I know it belongs in a circular file. A business that has my custom will have taken the time to find out whether I am Mr., Miss, Mrs., or Ms; a business that wants my custom will take the time to find out. A friend or family letter who is sending me a letter--not that I get many of these in this age of nonstop e-mail--will be on good enough terms to learn my first name. So a letter like this instantly announces itself as junk mail, almost as much as if it were marked "Urgent."
Sometimes, I get a letter from a company with whom I am already doing business that begins this way, and i am sorely tempted to do what my father once when he got a similar letter in the midst of a dispute with a credit card company. He actually sent a letter in reply that began:
Dear Mr./Ms. Last Name:
Note, this is a formal business letter. It begins with a last name and title.
Whether this approach got his dispute resovled any faster, I don't know. But it at least gave him back a shred of dignity.
I feel similarly in stores or, especially, when dealing with customer service representatives over the phone, who ask within 30 seconds of hearing my voice for the first time, "May I call you Jeffrey?" Um...no, you may not, I want to reply. We've just met, and not in a social situation. You are not my best friend from third grade. Please don't pretend to be.
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I noticed something in dealing with credit card companies. Before we sold our co-op in 2003, and my partner S was severely in debt and creditors would call us every day.
These people, credit card officials and collection agents, invariably referred to themselves as "Mr. Joses" or "Ms. Stevens."
I had a credit card that I was paying down: I had long before cut up the card and had no other contact information but the companies main number. I would first speak to "Tiffany" or "Cindy" or "Becky" who were happy to serve me. I would say I'd like to make a payment and they would transfer me invariably to the likes of "Mr. Jones" or "Ms. Stevens."
I saw through it of course as a cheap way to assert dominance by enforced formality. When they introduced themselves as "Mr. Jones" or "Ms. Stevens" I then insisted that they address ME as "Mr. [surname withheld]" and corrected them if they didn't. They kept wanting to call me "Daniel."
It became absurd.
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