Louise wrote:
>
>So I was pretty surprised to receive an email the other day, addressed to
>three of us in IT (two of the guys, and me), which started
>
>"Gentlemen, ...."
I went to a SAGE meeting the other day with two male friends (one of
them was Netizen staff, one was just a friend). We were greeted with
"Hello, gentlemen. I mean, and ladies."
I think that people just have pre-programmed social actions, kind of
like macros. I know at times I've responded to "Hi Skud" with "Fine
thanks, how are you" because I've had my brain switched off. I imagine
it's pretty much the same thing.
>I'm not so much offended by it, it was a pretty minor mistake to make. But
>I'm just really surprised that he routinely starts emails with
>"Gentlemen", considering that he *must* be corresponding with women every
>day.
>
>I'm wondering whether to address my next email to him
>
>"Ladies, ...." :)
I've done this in the past :) If you have a friendly relationship with
the people in question, it can be fun to do things like that. In the
case of clients or potential clients to email me with "Dear Robert" or
"Dear Sir" I usually reply to their email as if it was no big deal, but
say "By the way, Robert is my surname. My given name is Kirrily". If
someone refers to me as "he" on a mailing list, newsgroup, etc, I
usually say something like "Not last time I checked!" I responded in
this way to someone who wrote "WTG, Mr Skud!" the other way on a web
conferencing system I use.
K.
--
Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/
"Even had to open up the case and gaze upon the hallowed peace that
graced the helpdesk that day." -- Megahal (trained on asr), 1998-11-06
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
