what do you call your boss?

[pin]

just purely out of curiosity, what do you call your boss?

in that, do you call your boss by their first name or mr/mrs [Surname].

seems in my company (supposed to be international, but pretty much locally staffed, and run by a CBC who has been in HK for over 20 years) the boss is called Ms [Surname].

I call the boss by her first name, along with, what it seems all the other non Hong Kong people, however all the HK people, regardless of their seniority call the boss by her surname.

Just wondering what others do.

[PDLM]

First name, but he's American. His (local Chinese) secretary calls him Mr <surname>. Everyone else calls him by his first name.

I've been in other environments where it depended which language the people were speaking - in Germany, when the locals were speaking in English (because I was in the conversation) they would refer to each other and colleagues by their first names, but whenever they switched into German, the person they had just referred to as "Stefan" became "Herr Doktor Ingenieur Schimdt", or whatever.

[Crocodile]

In my Hong Kong office everyone is referred to by their first name, regardless how senior they are or where they are from.

But in the Philippines office, I get referred to "Sir (First Name)" by any of the admin staff and they refer to their Filipino boss as "Sir (First Name)". It is something I try to discourage as I feel very uncomfortable with it.

Having said that, I worked for a firm in Australia where all the partners of the firm had to be addressed as "Mr (Surname)". Made them feel special I think. I hated it.

[elle]

Talking to him Mr. xxxxx
Talking about him "The Git" (he is the living equivalent of Michael Scott).

[Hokuto]

Everyone in both places I've worked in Hong Kong refers to each other by their first names, but I always enjoy calling my boss "Boss" and nothing else.

[octarine]

Inside the company, first names.

With clients I always seem to be "Mr Jim".

In Japan you just got called by your job title.

[larac]

In NZ everyone is on a first name basis or sometimes first and last if you need to more clearly identify the person in a larger organisiation.

Here it is largely the same however the big boss who is the owner of the company is often called Mr xxx particularly when talking about him to Chinese staff or customers around the world. His name is the name of the company and many people are surprised to know he is a real person and are kind of in awe of that. Our whole company reputation is kind of built on maintaining that illusion of grandure so calling him Mr xxx helps to elevate him and works in our favour.

[DanielandHayley]

...Dave

[Sleuth]

just purely out of curiosity, what do you call your boss?

Did you mean in public or in private?

[mike2525]

in my very local company:
everyone is by first name/english name when speaking english. in chinese they usually add an Aa in front of english names or some of the chinese interns will use 'surname sir'