How do colleagues address each other in Shanghai's offices of different companies and enterprises?

Recently, an employment agency Zhaopin.com conducted a survey on office work rules and the results confirmed a similar survey on a small scale done by this reporter. In nearly 6,000 people interviewed, 66 percent call their colleagues by their full name or the last two words of their names; 17 percent like to address others by their English names, these coming mostly from foreign enterprises; another 5 percent like to call their fellow-workers, "brother" or "sister."

Zhaopin.com's survey result shows that 33 percent of workplace greetings towards one's boss carry an official title, such as so-and-so chief, so-and-so director, or so-and-so section head. This way of addressing one's boss with the official title in tow is most frequent in state-owned companies, followed by government organizations or business units, then private companies, with the lowest frequency in foreign enterprises.

The survey shows that in social situations, 65 percent of those sampled call their customers or people from other companies by the latter's titles printed on their business cards while 31 percent address others as Miss, Madam or Mr. Only 1 percent use the term "comrade."

Miss Li and Mr. Liu told this reporter when they first entered their present company and organization, they fretted over how to address their colleagues. "When I first join this company, I do not know my colleagues' names or responsibilities and it is quite a bit of a problem to greet them." Miss Li said: "Sometimes I address a male colleague as 'sir' and a female colleague as 'Miss'." Mr. Liu's solution to this problem is much simpler; he called all his new colleagues "teacher."

In reality, new staff view the issue of addressing their colleagues as very important. Zhaopin.com's survey shows that in answering the question "have you considered whether the way you address a colleague would affect your relationship with that person?" nearly 30 percent of respondents choose "view this as a very important issue, strive to win over the other party."

(Chinanews.cn August 3, 2005)