My boss calls me “buddy” and I hate it — what do I do?

You’re not being petty — a nickname that lands as condescension from someone with power over you is a real workplace irritant, and the community that chewed on this (someone ten years older than the supervisor calling them “little buddy”) treated it as one. Their answer is a short ladder, and most stories end on the first rung.

Rung one: charity plus one plain sentence. Assume no malice — one person’s generous read was that he may simply feel closer to you than you feel to him — and say how it lands, once, casually: “small thing — ‘buddy’ doesn’t really sit right with me. Just my name works great.” A boss who values you stops there, usually a little embarrassed. No meeting, no memo, no speech.

Rung two: the boundary form. If it continues after a clear ask, restate it as a boundary rather than a preference — calm, specific, on the record: “I’ve mentioned this before; I’m not comfortable with it.” The register shift does the work. Continuing past that is no longer a habit — it’s information about how your discomfort is priced, which belongs in your larger picture of the job.

And check the tone, not just the word. If what actually stings isn’t the syllables but a spoken-down-to quality — you’re beneath this conversation — the pattern has a name with research behind it, and naming it (page below) is what makes it discussable and, if it comes to that, decidable. Meanwhile, the pick-your-battles page is the honest companion for deciding how much of your capital this particular hill deserves this particular quarter. Wanting your own name, for what it’s worth, costs almost none.