So we have established the principle that our names should be used properly unless we give express permission to do otherwise. This leads me on to the question of when it is appropriate to use that name at all.
When I am not at the keyboard sharing my thoughts with you dear reader, I indulge in what is popularly known as a “real job”. That is to say, a pointless, unrewarding pursuit which occupies some eight to nine hours of every day, distracting me from my true vocation, whilst lining the pockets of the shareholders of a large Dutch multinational. This so-called work also enables the Chancellor of the Exchequer to rob me of a significant proportion of my income with impunity. But we will leave the issues of taxes and the exploitation of labour for another day, suffice to say that for the moment my current “career” subsidises my real job, which is writing.
However, I digress. The company for whom I prostitute my labours have a strict policy of insisting that its employees all wear shiny little badges with our names on. This, it is believed, makes us more approachable to customers. More accurately it is a weapon for an ever more irascible and demanding public to beat the poor unsuspecting employee with.
Contrary to popular misconception, most customer facing staff do their utmost to be courteous and helpful to the great unwashed. They may curse them behind their backs, but face to face there is always a genuine attempt at being helpful. The name badge could therefore be used to offer congratulations to a diligent soul for a job well done or simply to offer thanks for going beyond the call of duty in helping an ungrateful hooligan. How often do you think this occurs dear friend? The answer would be a big fat zero! Nix, nada, zilch, the big goose egg. It never happens.
Instead the name badge is used by the public to castigate employees whom it is felt have not been sufficiently deferential or in some other way not lived up to the massively over inflated level of expectation demanded in these modern times. Every little thing that goes wrong in the day to day running of the business is the direct result of incompetence on the part of the man or woman who serves as its public face. If they do not immediately have to hand the answers to Joe Public's most obscure enquiry, they are berated for being surly and unhelpful. If a train passenger arrives two minutes after the train has left, that is the fault of the platform staff. If a Conductor asks a Mother to fold up her pushchair on a crowded commuter train, he is deemed to be acting unreasonably, and that Mother will exercise her right to complain.
The company goes so far as to provide telephone helplines and actively encourages the public to report those who do not tug at their forelocks sufficiently hard – or to put in corporate speak “live up to our high levels of customer service.” In everyday parlance it means you have not shoved your tongue sufficiently far up their fat greasy backsides.
This, it is claimed, makes the company accountable. The most outrageous, bile filled lies are reported about staff by ordinary members of the public for the tiniest of infractions. A polite request for a customer to move their inconveniently dumped personal belongings can result in a venomous tirade of verbal abuse, and the hapless employee being hauled in front of management for a dressing down. And the complaint, however spurious, is lent weight because the complainant has a name to attach to it. It is almost as if they go home and think to themselves “That fecker asked me to move my shopping so a child in a wheelchair could get past!! I'm going to see to it that he loses his job.”
If they are not complaining, then they are over familiar and condescending, using your name at every opportunity. They see your name on a badge and assume that it gives them a divine right to address you by your first name. Whoop-di-doo, they can read! You want to grab them by the scruff of the neck and bellow into their patronising faces, “Yes that's my name! Don't wear it out!”. Call me a reactionary old fart, but I find it highly discourteous. I was brought up in a country and era where people still believed that you do not use a persons first name unless you have been introduced and that person has invited you to do so. Otherwise it is Mister, Missus, Sir, Madam what-have-you.
You are probably thinking, “How quaint”, or perhaps more likely, “what a feckin' tosspot, this guy actually actually believes in good manners and old fashioned etiquette.” And yes I do, make no bones about it. I do not just expect good manners, I demand them. I am the bloke who stands glaring at you as you bark your instructions at me. The officious little Hitler who won't respond until the magic word is spoken. Oh I may occasionally offer helpful hints along the lines of “PLEASE is the word you are looking for”, but more usually mine is the back you see moving away from you as you splutter and gulp like a beached goldfish.
I absolutely draw the line at children and snotty teenagers using my first name when I am at work. I simply will not tolerate it. Again, blame my hopelessly old fashioned upbringing, but where I come from children do not use an adults first name. Mum, Dad, Uncle, Auntie, Mr, Mrs, Sir, Madam are the only acceptable forms of address a child may use to an adult. Don't like it? Call the helpline.
The other day, as I dealt with a customer, I was approached by a pre-teen rabble all squawking and generally making everyone's life utter misery. I heard one of the little cretins say to one of his companions, “His name's David”. Well hallelujah, literacy has reached a point where brats can master five letter words.
Sadly it is not within my authority to simply ignore the little bastards, so I gritted my teeth and gave them what they asked for. As he handed over his money, the ringleader looked me in the eye and said “Thank you David”, with a smug grin of satisfaction on his chubby face. They others stood around sniggering. “Excuse me,” I replied, “Have we been introduced?” His stupid smile subsided somewhat. “Eh?” he grunted. I pressed home the advantage. “I asked you if we had been introduced, and the answer is no. So, until we have been, and you have grown out of short trousers you do not have the right to call me David. Do you understand me?” He nodded dumbly, clearly not having a clue why I was annoyed. “If you really must call me something, then it's Sir. Is that clear?”
I stalked away as the gang huddled together, an agitated buzz of profanity emanating from their midst. A elderly lady nearby gave me a tight lipped smile. I am not sure if it was a show of solidarity or an attempt to ward off my wrath.
We are told that we live in a classless society. We are told that using our first names emphasises our equality and mutual respect for each other. This is why cold callers and call-centre employees insist on trying to use your first names in every sentence. It is meant to be chummy, disarming, putting people at their ease. Sorry, but with me it promotes antagonism, embarrassment for the caller and a swift end to the conversation.
It is all bullshit of course. First names do not break down class barriers, they throw up artificial new ones. In decades past, the upper classes called the lower classes by their first names to emphasise their own superiority over the lower orders. Servants were John or Jane, whilst the masters were Sir or Madam. And this is precisely the relationship which modern society has created between Customer and Seller or Service Provider. A shop assistant is expected to call a customer Sir or Madam, whilst a customer gets to call that lackey by their name. It is designed to promote the notion that only money counts and that those who serve the public are inferior. This is why every Vicky Pollard up and down the country thinks that she is entitled to respect every time she pulls a wad of twenties out of her Burberry handbag. People who work in shops and on public transport are there to treated like servants, while spending power is lauded. It is a triumph of new affluence over age-old breeding.
When sales people use your first name, they are trying to get around your defences so they can flog you some pointless service that you do not want. When a customer uses an employees first name, they are trying to put that person in their place. As Sidney Poitier once said, call me Mister.
