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Once upon a time we were normal remote professionals and our sprint meetings were characteristically professional, no more, no less.

Until.

one of our juniors, a Southern sports-bro type, suddenly started saying "SIR" to the scrum master in literally every sentence.

"Good morning sir". "Yes sir." "Thank you sir." "I can do that sir."

SOMEHOW this plague caught on to half of the male members of our team like we're in the military or something. We have ONE veteran and ZERO Indians and I can't think of a logical explanation for why we're suddenly sir-ing each other and people who aren't even high level executives.

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  • 3
  • 11
    Sounds like the script for a hilarious comedy skit, well done~

    Also my condolences, ..
  • 7
    Cool story, sir
  • 9
    Next step they actually call people by newly assigned ranks and perform drills lol
  • 1
    It’s also a sign of respect 🤷‍♂️
  • 6
    I hope real high level exexutives are addressed with 'yer majesty'.
  • 3
    As an Eastern-European with a high but not quite native level of English, Americans learning about politeness and formal speech in everyday life is an endless source of entertainment to me.
  • 3
    They should call you Ma'am at the very least if not than it's blatant sexism. So in the next retro
    A. bring up dropping this surplus of words that is both unnecessary and sets the wrong tone/undesired implicit hierarchy.
    B. If disagreed demand they call you Ma'am or they will be court marshaled (HR'ed) for disrespect/sexism
  • 1
    @horus One way formal speech was used in the eastern bloc was to get executives to address workers symmetrically through a path of least resistance. If everyone's a sir/ma'am or a mr./ms. Lastname, the distance between ranks appears smaller.

    Actually, the major reason I'm wary of the modern neoliberal use of verbal reform is that everything around me indicates that it doesn't actually work if it isn't accompanied by systematic change.
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