Miss Manners: What is the correct way to refer to customers in my workplace?

Dear Miss MANNERS: I am 21 years old and have worked in various customer service locations since I was 17 years old. I’m currently employed at a bank and often a customer will ask a question I don’t know the answer to.

This requires me to leave the service area and ask my supervisor. Is it appropriate to say to my supervisor, “This lady (or gentleman) wanted to know…”?

The reason I ask is that referring to the person in question as “this lady” or “this gentleman” feels weird and vaguely condescending to me, and I’m not sure how it feels to customers.

THE GENTLE READER: You’re worried about formality, but using the third person about someone within earshot is always awkward, no matter who’s speaking. And some will also have problems with sex.

Before anyone suggests Miss Manners jab a finger in the poor customer’s general direction, she will suggest that “this customer” is a perfectly useful alternative.

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Dear Miss MANNERS: I have a wonderful periodontist who saved my smile. He is professional, charming and gentle.

His front desk manager is rude, dismissive and very unprofessional. It’s to the point where I’m afraid to walk into the office and deal with that person. I feel I should inform the doctor about the behavior of his staff, but I don’t know how to do it.

THE GENTLE READER: This isn’t that hard and will be a chance to use that smile.

Be apologetic, factual and unemotional: Give an employer the information they need to use in the operation of their business. Don’t blame him or tell him how to run his office. And of course you repeat your gratitude for his own services.

Miss Manners understands your concern. that you were setting him up for future awkward conversations with his employee, but assured you that they would eventually happen, with or without you. Your intervention he can make them go better because he’ll have more information — and it can happen sooner, before he loses more business because of this individual’s behavior.

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Dear Miss MANNERS: I am a lifelong hospitality worker and consider myself a good greeter in any scenario. A few years ago, at a new job, the phrase “Welcome” was used as a standard greeting.

I felt bad and somehow it didn’t make sense. Since then, I’ve noticed that the phrase “Welcome” is being used more and more, in the same natural way, as if it had always been the standard greeting — which I’m sure it wasn’t.

Is this a new viral expression of hospitality? Or am I wrong and my customer service impaired brain deleted this information?

THE GENTLE READER: It seems to Miss Manners that someone at this job has been through a German-speaking country and misunderstood what was being said.

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