Open Mouth, Put Foot In and Conversations

Open Mouth, Put Foot In:
I was at one of our plants yesterday and today because some of my parts were being assembled for a customer build. I went to watch and learn a little more about how they're assembled. I didn't really get to see much, because there were tooling problems that halted things. This morning I walked out to the floor to a machining cell, and a guy just looks at me and goes "who are you, another intern?" I said "no, actually I'm the design engineer for this program". Then said "you mean you're the designer then?". I said "No, I'm the engineer". (A designer is someone who just does CAD work, not an engineer, by the way). Engineers are expected to do both though. He just said "oh...sorry about that".

I think he felt really akward. It's nice to know I still look so young though.

Conversations:
At lunch we went to a "New York Style" Chinese Buffet. What's a "New York Style" buffet? I noticed there were 3 older women who came in, and walked up to the buffet. One of them was older than the other 2, but not old enough to be one of their mothers. Well, the older one, I'll call her Mildred (I don't know her name though) started to get her food. One of the other women was walking beside Mildred and saying "Oh look sweetheart, here's some chicken" and "Oh no honey, that's hot" and "Oh I know sweetie, those are breaded" and "Sweetheart, here's some of the beef you like" and "Look honey, here's the dumplings". All of this was said with a thick Michigan accent too. I wanted to say "she's OLDER than you, she's not your honey, or your sweetheart, or your sweetie". It's odd when people address those older than them as terms of endearment...except when I do it, then it's ok.