Puck, I would say we put different weights on what are largely the same values. What is more important: tradition or personal preference? Formal respect or informal friendliness? But then, that is exactly your point, I think 
I will say this . . . if someone asks you to call them by their first name, do NOT call them ma'am. I got fired for that once. I kid you not.
Southern upbringing vs. modern corporate pseudo-friendly paranoid who was sure I was mocking her.
Nope, I'd just forgotten her name.
And I was raised that you could not go wrong with ma'am. Oops. Apparently, I should have just asked her name again.
So, at least in something that unimportant, just call them what ever they want to be called!
Personally, I don't mind it, and I don't mind being addressed as Ms. either. My attitude is that I will tell you when you can use my given name (which I will actually tell you right away, but I do feel its presumptuous to just start using it . . .especially since if you don't know me, you're probably using the wrong name, since the only people who use my legal first name work for the government or telemarketers). When addressing clients, they are always Mr. or Ms. until they tell me otherwise or they call me by my given name; it always feels really odd to me to just shoot off an e-mail to "Joe" who I've never met and who I work for, and who is probably twice my age.
Inside the firm is hard . . . officially, the attorneys are all on a first name basis, but some of the partners actually prefer to be called Mr. or Ms. and screw firm policy. So I pretty much call anyone vastly older or vastly senior to me Mr. or Ms. and let them correct me . . or I ask some one who knows them. On the converse, I'm bothered by younger attorneys who force staff members thirty or forty years older than they, but their inferiors in the hierarchy, to address them as Mr. or Ms.
I will say this . . . if someone asks you to call them by their first name, do NOT call them ma'am. I got fired for that once. I kid you not.
Southern upbringing vs. modern corporate pseudo-friendly paranoid who was sure I was mocking her.
Nope, I'd just forgotten her name.
And I was raised that you could not go wrong with ma'am. Oops. Apparently, I should have just asked her name again.
So, at least in something that unimportant, just call them what ever they want to be called!
Personally, I don't mind it, and I don't mind being addressed as Ms. either. My attitude is that I will tell you when you can use my given name (which I will actually tell you right away, but I do feel its presumptuous to just start using it . . .especially since if you don't know me, you're probably using the wrong name, since the only people who use my legal first name work for the government or telemarketers). When addressing clients, they are always Mr. or Ms. until they tell me otherwise or they call me by my given name; it always feels really odd to me to just shoot off an e-mail to "Joe" who I've never met and who I work for, and who is probably twice my age.
Inside the firm is hard . . . officially, the attorneys are all on a first name basis, but some of the partners actually prefer to be called Mr. or Ms. and screw firm policy. So I pretty much call anyone vastly older or vastly senior to me Mr. or Ms. and let them correct me . . or I ask some one who knows them. On the converse, I'm bothered by younger attorneys who force staff members thirty or forty years older than they, but their inferiors in the hierarchy, to address them as Mr. or Ms.
