I am a Project Manager on a site in VA right now with a few hundred Latino workers mostly, they all call me "boss" for them its simply a respect thing. Some I have asked not to call me "boss" just call me Bill. Now those guys call me Mr. Bill
had a guy who use to work with me that would call me boss, really annoying, he also claimed to be a taekwondo expert. long story short i knocked his ass out one day, after that he only called me by my name.
God bless Texas----------------------- Old 300 I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull Its not how you pick the booger.. but where you put it !! Roger V Hunter
I am fully aware of the old connotations. I am old enough to remember chain gangs and white only fountains & toilets at the courthouse & elsewhere. Also could usually spot of con just out of the pen or a repeat offender by his calling anybody in uniform Boss or Cap'n.
Not how I use it and knew lots of working men that called the boss or owner "boss" out of respect in the north.
George Orwell was a Prophet, not a novelist. Read 1984 and then look around you!
Old cat turd!
"Some men just need killing." ~ Clay Allison.
I am too old to fight but I can still pull a trigger. ~ Me
In the Vol fire dept we use boss at times refering to officers in our dept....or to a senior member who might be a "Boss" in a paid dept in NYC....No desrespect meant..none taken.
I can only answer for myself but I don't call anyone boss...if I did it would only be in condecending manner.
Exactly, and that's the intention. If someone calls you boss, it's meant to be condescending.
NOT So in many cases.
I have been working as a foreman of a crew of 25 since 1985.
Some of the most sincere and most polite farm boys you have ever met have come through my crew. Some have a hard time calling anyone in authority by his first name, and I won't stand for Mister. (After all, I work for a living too.)
So some will use "Boss" as a compromise. And mean it in a respectful manner.
Also, I still see the effects from the plantation days on a few of our truck drivers. Those of extraordinary dark complexion and roots in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama will often refer to the white Dock Foreman as "Boss". But they do not address his Mexican counter part as such.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
As my dad said 'Your mother could walk into a room full of people and say [bleep] you and they would all want to kill her but I could walk into the same room and say [bleep] you and everyone would laugh'