How to deal with colleague who calls me "dear"?

[Anonymous]

I would take the approach of being “helpful.” Tell him that you and other women noticed he uses “dear,” you and other women realize he probably means well but you don’t like it, you and other women prefer he use your names instead of a term of endearment, and it’s to his benefit to stop using terms of endearment because things have shifted in our culture. You could joke that “dear” is for grandmas to use and he’s not at the old-fogey stage yet!

Make it less about “I don’t like it” (which gives him power) and more about “get with the times; you don’t want to seem out of date and/or sexist.”

[Anonymous]

7:57. Meant to add that you should say you and other women have noticed he only uses “dear” with women and with male colleagues he uses their names. (He’s not calling men “buddy” or something is he?) That way you’ve explicitly pointed out that he’s treating men and women differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people just do that. Chief is what my bacon and egg guy called my and my shoemaker called me boss, my aunts say dear.

I call everyone by first name which often pisses off C-level folk and regulators

One got I work with hates nick manes. Refuses to say Bob, Mike, Tom, Steve, Peg, etc.

I love this whole post. First, that you have such people in your life as bacon and egg men and shoemakers. I don't really know what any of that is. Then the typos in the final paragraph are the cherry.