Beyond ‘Teacher’ and ‘Sir’: What Happens When We Use First Names at Work

We rarely think about how we address our colleagues—but those small words shape our workplace more than we realise. Honorifics like teacher, sir, and madam may sound respectful, but they often create distance, hierarchy, and emotional disconnection. This blog reflects on why first names can build warmer, more humane academic spaces—and why being called simply Lakshmi matters to me.

There is something fascinating about the way we call each other at work. In the Indian academic landscape—perhaps more than in many other professions—honorifics travel faster than names. Teacher, Sir, Madam, Ma’am: they float through staff rooms, corridors, office chats, and WhatsApp groups like an inherited etiquette we rarely pause to question.

But lately, I have been thinking about what these words actually do.

Honorifics sound polite, but they also carry the weight of hierarchy. They are meant to convey respect, yet often create distance—especially when used among colleagues who are almost of the same age, share the same workspace, similar years of service, and even similar struggles. There is something oddly formal, almost ceremonial, about being called “Lakshmi teacher” by a colleague who is likely dealing with the same timetable headaches, student anxieties, and administrative labyrinths as I am.

For most of my career, this felt invisible. My department being located at Palayam meant that my interactions with faculty on the main campus were occasional, fleeting, mostly functional. Honorifics were background noise—neither warm nor cold, just there.

But proximity changes things. When you meet colleagues more frequently—over meetings, shared duties, unexpected conversations in hallways—you begin to notice the subtle textures of how people address you. And suddenly, “Lakshmi teacher” felt less like a cultural habit and more like an ill-fitting costume stitched by convention.

Because the truth is: honorifics reduce us to our roles. They flatten the complexities of a person into a single performance—the professional identity. The teacher. The embodiment of authority in the pedagogic encounter. The one whose role sometimes grows so large that it eclipses the person she is.

But I am Lakshmi.

Lakshmi Sukumar.

A person before a profession

A teacher only in relation to my students—not to the world at large, and certainly not to my colleagues. When a colleague calls me simply Lakshmi, something shifts. The conversation becomes warmer. The exchange becomes real. The person on the other side feels closer, as if we have stepped out of our laminated identities and into something more human.

And that is perhaps the larger message hidden in this small preference of mine:

The way we address each other reveals the kind of workplace we are trying to build.

A workplace where everyone is a title tends to feel formal, hierarchical, polite but not intimate.

A workplace where first names are allowed to breathe tends to feel collaborative, horizontal, and alive.

Names have a strange power. They travel across registers of identity—personal, cultural, relational, emotional. They make room for humour, irritation, affection, disagreement. Honorifics, on the other hand, polish people into professional surfaces. Smooth, respectable, and slightly out of reach.

In an age where workplaces are increasingly becoming sites of anxiety and burnout, connection is not a luxury; it is a form of care.

Maybe the smallest gesture of care is learning to call a colleague by their name.

So yes—call me Lakshmi.

Not because I reject respect, but because I embrace relationships.

Not because I dismiss hierarchy, but because I value equality.

Not because I want informality, but because I choose authenticity.

And perhaps—just perhaps—if more of us began addressing each other as people first and professionals second, our campuses and offices might feel a little less like bureaucratic systems and a little more like communities.