Verbal Etiquette question here: c'mon down teachers, professors, et all!

[reganq]

Actually, one of my problems arises not witth confusion over one of my customer’s marital status…but their sex.

I have had at least two customers whose sex I cannot determine. So I don’t know whether to use “Ma’am” or “Sir”.

I hate when that happens.

I’ve had the customer in question in front of me, spoken with them, and *still *had no clue.

Back when I was working, I had a client like this. Before my first conversation with said client, I had been told this person was a woman. But, I made the mistake in my call log of referring to her as a man.

This client has also been known to go into the other branches of where I used to work. Those who dealt with her face-to-face thought she was a man. They’d call me on the phone and say “he” had been in their branch. Then I had to correct them so that they wouldn’t make the face-to-face error again.

When I was finally able to hand that account off to another person, he made the same mistake. Except, he said “sir” to her on the phone. She corrected him.