Is this condescending and how would you approach this with a co-worker?

I've posted this before about being called a pet or cutesy name while on the job from a client or patient but here's another take on it. Background: I work for a medical company and we supply free medications to people who qualify for it. We get calls all day long and some times the doctor's office staff or even the patients like to refer to you as sweetie or honey even after I've given them my name. Most times they understand and don't do it anymore. But other times they get offended because they feel you are correcting them, but I guess you are. My name is not sweetie, honey, baby, or dear.

Since we're working from home right now we have an inner offer group chat with all our team members and one girl in particular, that I've never met personally likes to send me messages outside of the group chat when I ask a question. We may be discussing a particular situation of work process and she'll call me "Sweetie". Talking on the phone with a patient or doctor's office is one thing. People may just use those words in everyday speech. However, this woman is typing it in a chat message. "I don't think we have blank forms we can access sweetie" and then she followed it up with, "Thanks sweetie for researching an option for these calls." Again, I do not know her personally and since we've been working from home more than year I've only chatted with her on the company Microsoft Teams account. And this isn't the first time I've noticed her doing this.

How would you approach this with a co-worker or would you just excuse it as "that's just how she talks". But in this situation she's not talking, she's typing. If we were in the office and I walked by other people's desks and said something like "good morning sweetie" or "baby, did you get that email I sent you" I'd probably find myself in HR with a possible sexual harassments charge against me or hostile work environment.

Should I say something to this co-work to correct her or do I bite my tongue and just look at it as that's just how she communicates?

Frank, this experience of being called honey, etc. is pretty much SOP for a woman in the world of work.

And a lot of us really, really hate it. It's condescending, often sexist, and utterly unprofessional.

I have a name and I expect the people I work with and for to use it.

When I still practiced law, I was routinely asked if I was the court reporter, even after I had introduced myself as counsel. And I recall a client who thought I was a paralegal because he thought that was the term for a female lawyer. And I also spent time in Supreme Queens training a new guy (I was 3 years his senior) and opposing counsel asked the guy I was training if I was a new trainee and if the firm was going to keep me.

A lot of this bullshit is why I don't practice anymore.

I have also, long after I stopped practicing, been in meetings (in several different industries!) where I've had male colleagues and outsiders coming in (people from other offices, clients, etc.) inevitably turn to the man in the room — any man — and defer to him as the boss. I haven't necessarily been the boss in those instances, but the fact that, in many people's minds, man = boss and boss = man, in 2021, that's sadly not surprising anymore.

I'm too loudmouthed and bitchy to allow that kind of crap to go on, but a lot of people aren't. They sit there, silently gritting their teeth, and then are passed over for promotions because they're not assertive enough, or the client doesn't respect them.

Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, it's not curing cancer.

Are any of us (be honest here) usually in a position to have something that momentous happen to us personally?

I bet that's a big ole nope right there.

This is the OP's lived experience, and it's an experience that I share. And I know a lot of other people do as well.

And if it's not important to you, you know there's no need to do anything but collapse the topic.

It's one thing to have a teller at the coffee shop say this, it is another to have a coworker say it and another still to put it in written communication. I wouldn't allow it from a coworker directed at me, I would definitely call it out if directed to a subordinate. It's unprofessional and should be addressed promptly rather for the benefit of both employees. Allowing an employee to go around being unprofessional is not doing her any favors.

My apologies for my last line. You're right; it was uncalled for.

Barry is a he.

Most of his posts are about how he thinks his wife is disgusting, he just likes complaining about, especially his wife who he hates with a passion.

Barry is a he.

Most of his posts are about how he thinks his wife is disgusting, he just likes complaining about, especially his wife who he hates with a passion.

Then she should address it...not write to a forum clutching her pearls and asking, "What should I do."