John Jonas (Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast, Ep. 372) explains why online Filipino specialists often address foreign employers as “sir” or “ma’am,” using a personal 2005 anecdote about his first hire (Joven) to show this is a cultural form of respect and advising listeners that it’s usually best to accept or gently encourage alternatives rather than demand change.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 372, why your OFS calls you sir or ma'. Am. This is going to be a fun one. So I remember the very first time I was ever called sir. It was the first day I hired someone from the Philippines. This is 2005. And the next, I hired him. The next. The next morning, I get a daily report from him, and it says, sir, here's what I worked on today. 1, 2, 3. He listed them out. Thank you and God bless, and then signed his name. Actually, that was Joven, and I've talked about Joven quite a few times. Joven now runs onlinejobs.ph. so this was the very first daily report that I ever got from someone in the Philippines. And I remember my stomach turning over like, you just called me sir. I'd never been called sir in my life. I was like. I think I was 27 years old, and it was weird to me. And I immediately started a response back to him that said, please don't ever call me sir again. You can call me John. And then I didn't send it. I thought, you know, I wonder if there's. I wonder if there's some cultural thing going on here that maybe I shouldn't send this. And I'm glad that I didn't, because there definitely is a cultural thing. And for so many years, I was called sir, and I'm still called sir every day, but not by everybody. Some people have become comfortable enough now, and they understand our culture enough that they don't call me sir now. When we went to the Philippines in 2010, it was really interesting. Everybody called me sir. My wife was called sir, ma'. Am. And I've gotten a number of explanations for this over the years. Some people have said they don't really know what to say. Sir is just a form of respect, and they know you're female, so they want to call you ma', am, but sir is a form of respect, so they add it on. So it's sir, ma'. Am. I'm not really sure. So what do you do about this? Well, probably nothing. I mean, you can try and encourage people to call you by your name, but they may just call you boss, or they may call you sir boss, or they may. They may call you sir forever. And I do have people that are still calling me sir after so, so, so many years. In fact, here's the earliest email I can find from Joven where he starts with hi, sir, the most part. Leave it alone. It's a cultural thing, and it's how they show you respect.
