Work Observations 3

I think I've come to the realization that my department is stiff and cold(かたい and 冷たい for those in the know).

For example. My whole department always adresses emails to me with 殿. 殿(tono) actually means 'lord', as in a lord of a manner. Now as you can imagine, this is not a frequently used word. The first time I ever saw it being used was when I came back from the pharmacy, and the bag had my name and 殿 written after it.

When I started working here, it seemed so strange that my department used it. Working in city hall, I never saw it being used. 様 was about as far as anybody went.

I work with these people everyday, why do they have to be so formal?

What I've started noticing is that it seems we never use 殿 with people outside of our department. Now that makes no sense to me. I was tacking 殿 onto everything, and I just never saw other people using it.

The attractive guy in the ad department, conversely uses 君 with me all the time. My supervisor was like 'guess he knows whose in charge!', but from the usage I've seen of 君 (guys who are equals and good friends) It felt friendly to me.

I'm beginning to think that perhaps 殿 has somewhat of a 'comrade' meaning to it.