Of course Dad I will not call you by your name as you request……

In the mid 90’s I joined my Dad’s company helping in the office.

When I first joined the team there were about 12 main people in the business. So everyone knew I was my dad’s son.

My dad has always run businesses in a relaxed environment wanting workers to call him by his first name.

So here’s where the naming troubles came into play.

So because he was my dad I called him dad (duh). So after a few weeks my dad pulled me into a meeting asking me not to call him dad while at work.

So I obliged wanting to placate him. So I started calling him Steve ( not his real name but I like Steve and Steve is a cool name.) after a few day’s he again pulled me in to a meeting.

But that wasn’t good enough either!

This time he asked me not to call him Steve because it sounded weird for me as his to call him by his first name.

So I asked him if I should call him Mr Summer’s ( not his surname/last name) He said no that it was to formal for him. So I asked him “Well what I should call you?”.

Finally he found one that stuck.

He told me to figure it out but not to call him those.

So here comes my very petty side for the next +/- 20 years while I worked for the business till I left.

Inside and outside of work ( I.E. when I saw him at home or out at dinner) I called him boss.

Then with the perfect compliance of the malicious variety, he stayed consistent.

He kept on asking me then to call him Dad which I refused.

The day I left the business I immediately reverted back to calling him Dad.

It took him about 6 years after that for him to ask why I stopped calling him boss and started calling him Dad.

When I gave him my answer he was shocked he never put 2 and 2 together.

Which shocked me more than him because I was sure he figured it out. My dad is very technically inclined but sometimes misses things that are right in front of him.

Let’s see what folks had to say, eh Steve?

Most of us were just trying to figure out…why ‘Steve’?

This one.

This one right here caused the LOLs to burst forth.

Another person had a very similar situation, though with their Mum.

One commenter had a fantastic idea.

I want to try this with friends at random.

Whatever you say, boss!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.