Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The official stamp of old age was placed on my head yesterday afternoon. One of the interns here in my building was on my floor, and clearly he was lost and bewildered. Because he was a young brother, I suppose he felt comfortable asking another brother for directions to the restroom. He peeked his head into my office, and then uttered the words that a young, early 30s gentleman like myself would really prefer not to hear..not yet anyway. "Excuse me sir...". I paused for a second, and then I just kept it moving and said, "What's up?". He asked me where the restroom was, I directed him there, and then he said, "Thanks a lot sir". I was like you gotta be kidding me. Now on one hand, I suppose I should be thankful that the youngster had enough respect for me to call me sir. He could have called me dog, champ, nigga, or something like that, all of which are a bit inappropriate in the workplace, so I appreciate his word choice on some level. But damn if that didn't make me feel older. I remember being 22, fresh out of college, and in the workplace, and I called the men 40 and over "sir" out of respect. And I always addressed the older women by "Ms" or "Mrs". But I sure as hell don't remember addressing the men who were around 30 as sir. I'm blaming it on the beard..

One of the best perks of the internet, is that it allows you to have damn good e-friendships, without every really getting bogged down in all that face to face b.s. I do have some friends that it is cool to meet, drink, eat, talk jive, maybe club a bit, and then separate. I have a handful of friends like that. But I also have some friends who primarily exist via the boundaries of my computer screen, and that is alright with me too. We talk during the course of the day, exchange jokes, talk about relationship issues, and sometimes exchange real and serious fears and worries. Once we log off the computer, the friendships end, until the next log on occurs. It's not that we COULDN'T be friends face to face, its just the email/chat function effectively allows us to scratch the friendship itch. An anti social person like myself, thrives on that lack of non-contact. God bless the internets as GW Bush would say.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I have a taste for Chik-Fil-A like you wouldn't believe. I remember at my old job, when I would travel, I would purposely have my AA route a flight for me thru Atlanta, because they had a Chik-Fil-A in the airport(concourse A I believe). Those were good times!

Love Of My Own

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

30 ainet the new 20 its the new 50
Im going to start calling you Sir now

Anonymous said...

don't feel bad, it happens to me a lot, and i'm younger than you. More than likely it is the beard that makes you look older. Although a young man might call you sir because of the beard, young women think you're sexy b/c you can grow one.

Anonymous said...

You know I work in HR and I have only ran into a chosen few young people who address people by sir and ms. or mrs., so by all means don't feel old... sir. LOL!

Jo said...

Dang . . why was I looking for a Chick-Fil-A today. . .I had the cravings. Unfortunately for me, the only one I know of is in Silver Spring and that four hour drive just wouldn't have been worth it. I guess I really need to figure out where the one here is . . .oh well, I guess I can't find everything at once.

Well, thank God for the Internet. Like you, I think it's a God-send . . .well, I guess if he created us, then it must be. As for the e-mailing, yep, I am with you . . .add texting to the list. It's that no frills conversation that allows you to keep it moving and keep it PRIVATE! I can't stand hearing non-work related convos at work it annoys the crap out of me . . .I am like man, take that s@#$ out of here. At least pretend you are working, otherwise the rest of us look like idiots - working while you chat with your friends about what you did last night.

As for the Sir thing - Rashad, face it, you ARE old! That's what happens after you turn 30, the young girls start to see you as a dirty old man, and the young guys start to see you as the dirty old man who is quite capable of stealing their young women. Oh well, such is life.