Respecting Inferiors

I was talking with an officemate, ex-teammate, of mine during my office break today. Since we’re both promoted to different groups, we rarely get to chat nowadays. So we chatted about his job now and my job and of course our old jobs.

He mentioned something that he learned from his peers. Since we were both floor agents before, we say sirs and maams to supervisors we see on the floor as a sign of respect to them. Ate and kuyas to the maintenance help we see cleaning up after us. He said that his peers once commented that he should not say sir or ma’am anymore to supervisors he sees on the floor. I asked him why is that? He said that his peers mentioned that since they are on equal ranks now with supervisors, he should stop using sirs and maams.

That got me into thinking…Is saying ma’am or sir not allowed anymore? Are we not allowed to say those just to show our respect to our equals? Are we not supposed to say sir or ma’am to the maintenance help we see on the floor just because they have different jobs?

I am not on equal ranking with supervisors so i still say ma’am or sir to them. But even if i am, i will still say ma’am or sir because i would want others to say the same to me.

I always say, “we learn new things each day” especially if i did learn something new. But if this is what i will learn.. then don’t bother. I won’t follow it.