Transcript of AE 1351 - The Goss: Aussies React to Boss Saying He Must Be Called "Sir"

G'day, you mob! Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen. And we talk about the week's news whether locally Down Under here in Australia or non locally overseas in other parts of the world, okay. And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right. If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills.

In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au, where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time. Keep practising and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

Sorry, I gotta get the can.

Dad's leaning down to get his drink.

Yeah, I'm in the farting chair again.

We had a special request from Simon.

Oh, hey Simon.

Can we please not talk over each other as much? Because it's harder to understand which, which I definitely agree it is.

Yeah, it is, but that's part of the. Yeah. This is conversational and like. Yeah, we'll we'll try and do it. But sometimes when you get excited you've just got to keep going.

Oh you guys I'll have to let us know who you think is the primary perpetrator. Is it Dad or is it me that's always interrupting the other one?

That'll be me.

I know. I try and let you talk.

Not a beer today.

I saw this one come up on, um, Reddit and thought it was an interesting conversation to have here. So this is on Reddit subreddit. Ask an Australian, right? r/AskanAustralian. "Too casual. I called my boss 'mate' and got pulled up." So I'll read his story here and, and then maybe some of the comments and we can chat about formality or informality at work.

Yeah.

If you want. But he says, "Hi everyone, just a quick one. I recently had a moment at work, casual job, where I called my boss mate. He looks like he's in his 40s and I'm in my 30s, so I didn't think much of it, but he let me know that he'd prefer I use his name or call him 'sir' instead. Totally fair. And I respect that. No hard feelings at all. That said, I've noticed that here in Australia people often use 'mate', even in pretty formal or professional settings, like when tradies or service people talk to customers, they'll say 'mate' even if they don't know each other personally. So I'm curious when you meet someone new, especially in work or semi-formal setting, what do you usually call them? Their name? Sir? Mate? And when do each of these feel appropriate? Thanks. I'm looking forward to your responses." And so some of the comments here "Is he Australian? Or are you in a very formal work setting like, uh, the court system?" "Listen, mate, my client wishes to enter a plea of not guilty." So, yeah, clearly in that sort of situation. And then, "Mate, I am not going to call you 'sir'." There were these people commenting this and then "Sir?! Ask him if he holds a warrant or permission from the king. If not, he can bash it. What a wanker! Next time call him sir and bow at the same time. Really, take the piss."

Yes. Genuflect, profusely.

And then there's all of these. Like "Sir? Laughing my ass off. Keep calling him 'mate'."

Yeah, that's. That's an interesting one. Because as soon as you read that little bit. Because I hadn't heard that story before. As soon as you read that bit and said, 'you can call me by name or sir', I immediately flinched.

And just went, you fucking wanker.

Like, yeah, it's.

The only place I would ever hear anyone using 'sir' in Australia that I would think is not abnormal would be somewhere like Geelong Grammar. And speaking to maybe the principal or something, but even then I would probably say Mr. or Mrs..

As a student or a parent, you might, but not as a teacher. I can't imagine a teacher calling..

No no no no no. Yeah yeah. As a student 100%. Yeah. As the only thing like thinking back on the TV show Round the Twist. And they're in class at school and they kept all the kids when they would talk to that, that male teacher that they had, they would be like, Sir! Sir! Sir! And I think that's gone out of fashion.

Well, I don't know. It's been, it's been, how long since I've been a high school teacher? 30 years?

75.

30 years. Yeah. It feels like that. Um, but yeah, I when I was a teacher, high school teacher, all the male teachers got called Sir, and all the female teachers got called, Miss, regardless of whether they were married or otherwise.

Yeah.

So I think, but I, I don't know how well that's continued or not.

I'd never call anyone Sir. And I went to a private school, as a lot of the listeners will know. Um, I went to Geelong College and. Yeah, I don't remember ever being asked to call anyone Sir. We might have had, like, the Reverend and called him Rev or something that was, you know, doing a class instead of Mr. or Mrs.. But the only other one that I remember that being, that was sort of weird was, um, our principal at the time was Doctor Turner.

Yeah.

And I remember it always being like, why do we call her doctor? Like, I mean, I know she has a PhD, but it had nothing to do with being a principal. As far as I was aware, it was..

What are you going to call her, Miss?

Well.

Yeah.

Mrs.. She's married, you know, Mrs. Turner.

But it's a title.

I know, but I'm doctor, but I..

Yes. But you're not Mr.. That's the point is people wouldn't call you Mr. Smissen. If they were going to call you Mr. Smissen, they should call you Doctor Smissen. So, as opposed to, if you're not going to use the honorific, then just call somebody by their name.

Yeah, yeah. But anyway. Yeah. So I thought that was funny. There was some of these, though. Pretty much all of them were just like, "I have never in my life called a boss 'sir'. When I was younger, like 19 and starting out, I said, Mr. Thompson or whatever a few times, but was always corrected to use their first name." And then like another one, "Sir? Fuck right off." Then, "Fair play, 'mate' might be a little casual, but anyone who expects you to call them 'sir' is taking the absolute piss."

Yes. Pretty much.

So yeah, it is one of those weird ones where.

Unless, unless there is some form of other level of authority. Like in the police, or maybe a fire brigade or something like that, where if you're speaking to the, you know, senior sergeant of police, who's the head of a large police station and you're a young cop, you're not going to walk in and go, Oh, g'day, mate. You'd call them 'sir'.

Yeah.

Just because of the rank.

And well, that's like being in the army.

Being in the military. It's a rank thing. Whereas if you're, you know, I work most of my life in schools, universities, and then ten years in a private company, I never would have called the president of the company 'sir'. And apart from the fact that he was half my age. But, um. But I. Similarly, I wouldn't have called the vice chancellor 'sir' or 'ma'am'.

Yeah.

I'd call them by their first name.

I think culturally it would be uncomfortable for most people, even in those positions, higher up, to have younger or more junior level workers using that kind of language in Australia. It's very, I don't know if it's related to this kind of like, tall poppy syndrome thing that we have where we kind of tear down people who get too big for their boots and want to be better than everyone else. But then as a sort of link to that is the fact that as a result, you don't want to be seen as better than anyone else, probably because you're worried people would tear you down. So you're always like, just everyone were equal. Don't pop your head up because you'd get shot off.

I agree with the, I think it was the first person's response that you read out, um, that 'mate' in the workplace to your boss is probably inappropriate.

Yeah.

Um, unless you know them very well. You know, if they're friends, you would do it. But you wouldn't refer to your boss who's just your boss. And you don't have a relationship outside of work as mate, I wouldn't have thought.

I think you would match it with what they used. So if it were me getting a job, if they were always calling me. Look mate, mate, mate, mate, mate, mate, mate, mate. I would probably then be like, okay, well clearly this is an environment where I can use that kind of language.

Exactly.

But I wouldn't be the first person to do it at a new job. You know, I wouldn't be like, Oh, yeah, listen, mate, you know, um. And if they pulled you up, you'd be like, No? Okay, whatever.

Speaker2:
And the and the, the tradies response that you, that you mentioned in there, um, that sort of thing where it's, that's a different relationship that, that's not a work relationship in the same sense. That's a I'm doing a job for you for a day. And then when I'm finished my job and you paid me, I'll say, thanks, mate, and leave you.

Yeah, yeah.

Or yeah, good job mate. Yeah. See you later. Um, I think that's different. And that's, that's a certainly within my experience in Australia. And I say it all the time, you know, I'll go to the petrol station, fill up with petrol, grab a drink and a chocolate bar or something. And I don't care whether it's a 15 year old kid or a 75 year old woman. I'll probably say, oh, thanks mate, and leave, because it's, it's just that sort of way of being friendly and funnily enough, respectful.

Yeah.

You're sort of treating them as an equal by saying 'mate', you're treating them as an equal.

Which shortens the distance between the two of you.

It does. And I think that's the problem in the workplace, where if this, if your boss considers themselves to be not your equal, to be superior to you in a work context, then calling them 'mate' is dragging them down to your level. And I can see why the person was probably, not insulted so much, but ticked off. But the bit is just out of the..

If you're doing it in front of other people, they're probably like, I don't want other people.

Yeah.

Um, behaving the same way towards me and sort of undermining my rank or whatever in this. And that's why they would have it in the Army or whatever, right? Like it's about respecting the difference in levels.

Yes. And and sometimes that's just workplace etiquette as well, that I worked in a, in a university for ten years. And I knew a lot of people very well.

Yeah.

Um, and a lot of them were friends outside of work. Uh, but within a work context, if we're in a meeting or something, I wouldn't treat them like a friend in a meeting.

Yes. Yeah, it's, it's that facade, right. In front of other people, you keep it professional.

Exactly.

You're not going to be there running a meeting with CEOs and all that, whatever. And then be like, Oh, g'day, mate. How's it going?

Yeah.

You're going to be more formal. And then maybe outside of it you'd be like, Mate, you want to get a beer or something?

Yeah, exactly.

It's so, I was pissing myself a little bit inside because this comment: "'Mate' would feel a bit odd, but I don't see how it could be grounds for any kind of complaint. Seems a bit precious, really, but asking to be called 'sir' is too fucking funny. Who does this guy think he is? I'd start calling him milord and responding with very good."

Very good, milord!

"Bowing every time he asks me to do something. What a knob!" So yeah, pretty much the general consensus here is like, um, no. Another one. "Like, are you in the Army? If not, tell him to get fucked."

Yeah. And that's it. I mean, we didn't have the context of what the workplace was.

It's so funny, though, seeing this reflected in this office, you know, loads of Australians, um, replying there's another one here, "Sir? Righto, champ. No worries mate." Yeah, I forgot my train of thought. It's funny that it's almost worse that you ask to be called 'sir'.

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

The fact that you said to someone, please call me 'sir'. I don't think, if you were the average workplace, you would never live that down.

Oh, no. If everybody would call you sir.

Everyone would..

Everyone, appropriately. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, exactly.

Excuse me, sir.

Get the customers to do it. You would, you would. That's why it's an interesting thing to talk about. I guess that, like taking the Mickey culture and bullying in Australia, where there's, there's certain levels to taking the piss amicably all the way up to being really nasty.

Yeah.

But anytime someone like this, where if you were in a position of authority and you're kind of taking, you know, taking it to extremes and really trying to push someone below you down, which is how I feel like it would be by forcing someone or requiring them to call you 'sir'. Everyone else would be like, yeah, we're going to bring you- this is the tall poppy syndrome thing.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, sure, we'll take the piss now and we're going to make fun of you, and we're going to try and bring you back down because we want you to remember you're just like everyone else. And so, yeah, it would be funny, I think if I was working somewhere and someone did that, I would expect a lot of people to be taking the piss straight afterwards.

Yeah, I it, it's to me it's just unfathomable. I can't, I can't even conceive of a situation outside that levels of authority in a military or police or whatever, in any other workplace. I can't imagine anybody ever saying that.

So, so many of these are fucking funny. "He sounds like a fuckhead." And then the person replied, "That's 'Sir Fuckhead', mate."

Oh, God. Sorry, I've had bronchitis all week. I'm going to stop breathing.

Pretty much every single one of the comments on here is just someone being..

So everybody's picked up the 'sir' thing.

Yeah, everyone's already making..

They've forgotten that it's about a guy asking 'mate'. And they've all jumped into the 'sir' thing.

Oh my god. Yeah, it's just hilarious, but I guess. Yeah. I wanted to have this- "Sir? What a cock head. If I were you, I'd use his name while I'm looking for a new job. Then once I've notified him I'm leaving, I'd call him 'mate' at every opportunity." Yeah. So I guess the point of wanting to talk about this was to sort of help give the listener insight into what work culture is like and informality informality.

Yeah.

And it was one of those things where I was watching Tokyo Vice recently. Have you heard of Tokyo..

I've heard of it. I haven't watched it.

Yeah, I think it's set in the 90s, and it's a young American journalist who goes to Japan and sets up life there and studies there, and then he tries to enter one of the most prestigious newspapers to work as a journalist. And, um, it's like journalism, policing and yakuza. It's like those three kind of parts to the show and the interaction between all of them. But when he starts working at the newspaper, it's just crazy seeing the cultural differences in how the newspaper is run. So there are like, you can be friendly with your colleagues, but then you've got like a manager above you and you have to call that manager effectively like Mrs. or Mr. or sir, you know, use all the honorifics. And there's a few times where he says he uses the wrong one and she's like, dude, like you can't call me that, not in front of other people. And then she is incredibly deferential to the president of the, um, you know, newspaper. And there'll be scenes where he. The first one of the first scenes is like the the white guy from America gets the job, he passes an exam, does really well, gets the job at this newspaper, walks in, and the president's like, why is there a fucking white guy here? And they're like, he's like, get out. You know? But it's just crazy how informal everyone is in Japan, it seems, based on this show back in the 90s, downwards.

Yes.

And yet upwards, you've got to do extreme formality, you know, and that they'll switch it on and off. And it's the same. It seems to be the same with the police. Same with the Yakuza. Upwards, you are insanely formal with everyone above you. Downwards, you can treat them like shit, in comparison. And I think Australia is very different in that sense, where it's much there is still, I would say, a level of differentiation between levels, but it's really squashed.

Yeah.

So you would still be polite and respectful, but we would show that in different ways. And yet, if you were using sir or even mister or whatever at work, here, I think most people would be like, dude, don't just call me Jeff.

But again, I think it's partly, um, you can't generalise on specific occupations or workplaces and things. I think you've got to read the situation, read the place, how other people behave. Do other people, you know, if you're new in an organisation, you don't just march in there slapping the president on the back going, G'day, mate. How are you going?

Yeah, exactly.

Um, you wouldn't even necessarily do that to a colleague that you've just met. You'd work out what the appropriate form of, of sort of behaviour and speech is before you start doing that. And that's true anywhere in the world. I think you'd.

Yeah. Well..

Work out your situation.

Don't make any assumptions.

Yeah.

Try and work out what other people are doing and then reflect that mirror that, try and do the same. And I think I say it's like with swearing, if in doubt, go without.

Yes.

Like if you're not sure, just don't use it.

Stop swearing.

Wait to listen to others doing it. And if they do it in front of you, it's probably okay for you to do it in a similar way.

Yes.

You know, and if, if it would be very weird if they were there, you know, fucking shit. Fuck fuck fuck. And then you said, Oh yeah, fuck. And they were like, whoa, dude.

Whoa, dude?

Take it easy, for fuck's sake. You know? You'd be like, what?

Wait a minute.

What's with the hypocrisy?

I know.

So anyway, I thought that would be a fun episode to talk about, but anything else you want to mention with, like, um, Australian work culture? Anything you can think of off the top of your head that would help migrants or people from overseas trying to get used to.

Yeah. Look, I think sometimes it's, it's that read the situation, but also read the situation and don't try and apply your own experience to it.

Yeah.

Because..

Don't assume.

A lot of. Yeah. Don't assume. But also a lot of people, I think, who have come from more formal cultures would be shocked about the informality in some Australian workplaces.

Or part of that too, is probably..

And so you..

Just become a boss. Don't get offended straight away as your first reaction. If you feel like people below you are being too informal because it may just be a cultural difference and not necessarily someone showing disrespect.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, but it is interesting, like the difference between Asian cultures and India and Pakistan and just how polite they are to the levels above them. I would love to learn more about why that evolved over time, why there are certain cultures that are very, very, very respect centric and like differentiating your level in society and then other cultures like ours, where it's a lot more squashed and less fazed about it.

But maybe that in older cultures- because Australian culture is very young, you know.

Yeah.

Post-invasion Australia, you know, 240 years of Australia is very young. You know, there aren't many first world developed countries that are, that have got that little history in their, in the culture that is generically..

The dominant one.

The dominant one. And so I think maybe that's it, that we've just come from that informality. But there's also I suspect that and, you know, there's a lot of historians and things that have spoken about having a convict background.

Yes. That was what I was about to say.

Meant that, you know, the authoritarian line was you're either in it or you're out of it. You're either in authority or you're out of the authority. And if you're out of the authority, you're treated everybody the same.

And you resented..

And you resented the authority.

Yeah.

So yeah, it sort of flattened very quickly. And so we had no other than that, you know, we had no class structure, we had no history of a class structure in Australia. Whereas in many cultures around the world, there is a history of, you know, certainly within..

Oh yeah, even back in England.

Yeah, European cultures, the the aristocrats and the serfs. And in Asian cultures, that was the same, I mean, the caste system as it was in, in, in India, for instance. Um, and that's different from a class structure, um, because it's groupings that different groups treat each other different ways. It's not a hierarchy.

You can't really move out of them, right?

No. Exactly. So.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah. So I think that's that, you know, we're a very young culture. So maybe that's part of the reason for the informality.

Mhm. Cool! Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed this. And, um. Yeah. Simon, let me know. Did we have an acceptable amount of, um, differentiation between talking?

Sir Simon, mate?

Yeah. That's it. Let us know, mate. Hopefully that's better. I'm trying to be more aware of it. See you guys!

Bye!