When do we use “yes sir, no sir?”Since moving to the dirrty south, I’ve noticed a lot of people use formal salutations and have “manners.” When I first started hearing people calling their bosses or professors sir or ma’am, I thought everybody in the south was being sarcastic and rude. Turns out they are actually trained to do it from childhood. My opinion? Well, although it shows respect, blah blah - it also shows a hint of dominance and I think unecessary in the year 2008. My boss is not my WWII Veteran grandfather and addressing him as “sir” implies that I’m an office kiss-ass. It could help or hurt my career based on whether or not my rhetorical boss liked the attention enough to promote me or found it annoying. Either way, it would probably prevent me from being seen as an equal in his eye and I’d never earn a position higher than his. Yet another example of why I yearn to be in the north, where things just makes sense to me.