I have a weird relationship with a former grad school professor, in that I can't figure out what to call her! Definitely first name, but then I'm not sure if I'm OKed to use her nickname or not. And she signs emails with just the first letter. In practice, I don't call her anything.

It could be that they just don't know how to speak/write, but sometimes they just seem so huffy about have to actually explain themselves.

Not just in academia! My minion randomly got a call from someone at an affiliated organization, looking for a coworker here. A coworker in a different department, whose office is relatively far away. The annoying caller insisted that my minion try to figure out why she didn't pick up the phone. Is she in her office? Is she in the office at all today? DUDE. We have no idea!! Leave a freaking message, and wait for a call back!

I have a weird relationship with a former grad school professor, in that I can't figure out what to call her! Definitely first name, but then I'm not sure if I'm OKed to use her nickname or not. And she signs emails with just the first letter. In practice, I don't call her anything.

My relationship with my mentor is like that. She's a fairly formal person, so we were always in a Ms. Lastname/Dean Lastname situation, which I'm fine with (she had some problems with people feeling like she was trying to keep them at arm's length). Now that I no longer work for her, she calls me Firstname, but I don't feel comfortable using her firstname, so I just call her Boss. It does the trick for me because it's informal and nickname-y, but doesn't infringe.

I think I should stop and eat lunch before I start smashing shit.

You should. I went to Chick-Fil-A.

I admit I try and wring any little piece of information out of whoever answers the phone. I try to be nice about it, like anything I get will be gravy. So many calls go "Hi. I'm so-and-so. Here's my problem and so-and-so said that you could help. Are you the right person? If not, can you point me in the right direction?"

In the new job I have tons more of that to do. Not only am I still feeling my way around, but information is obscurely held here, and that "if not, then who?" question is scarily revealing.

So I don't take umbrage with people who ask what I can't answer--until they get huffy. Which happened a lot in my last job--somewhere in the phone IVR system my number came up for customer support. The company was about 15 divisions strong and I never quite worked out which one of them people thought they were talking to. But man, did I get cussed out for saying that I was in IT and couldn't help them resolve account issues--and to top it off, no I can't transfer them anywhere, because I don't know where they came from, and we don't know any of the customer-facing phone numbers anyway.

Man, that English breakfast latte was good. My appetite is inching back into existence.

In practice, I don't call her anything

I call these people "excuse me".

Y'know, I'ma learn from John Crichton's mistake and just take a pass on this one

And miss the opportunity to make a baby with Aeryn Sun?

Somebody broke GirlGeniusOnline! I only just got addicted, and now I'm bereft.

You should. I went to Chick-Fil-A.

I just called for Thai take away.

And miss the opportunity to have a baby with Aeryn Sun?

Peacekeepers were pretty free with the interbreeding, but I don't think even Aeryn would be able to pull THAT off, Frank.

I just called for Thai take away.

I would not mind a Thai taking me away.