I figured it was to talk about my contract coming up in April, but no. Turns out it was regarding a project meeting I attended this last Monday. One of the "Engineers" on the project, and I use that term loosely as most all of their work product I've seen was flawed, incomplete, and very sloppy in general, complained to HR that in that meeting I showed complete disrespect of their "non-binary" identity, and purposely referred to them in a condescending manner whenever I spoke about or to them in the meeting. I was taken back as this was a weekly project progress meeting of ten people, was very short, and generally pretty lighthearted, there were never any heated moments. I did however instantly know what this was about.

This person's given name is Jennifer, but wants to be called "Emerald Sky", and their, they, them. I only used this person's last name the 3 or 4 times I mentioned them. In this group, there are 3 Johns and 2 Marks, so it's just easier to use last names, never mind that pretty much everyone here normally refers to each other using their last name anyways. I told our HR person exactly that and she told me I should have first asked each of them if it was OK if I referred to them that way??? I then reminded her that she just paged me using "Mr. {my last name}, please come to the Atrium", and that she hadn't first asked me if that was OK, so perhaps she was now disrespecting me in the same manner.

LOL, she just stared at me for about 10 seconds, got up from her desk, and said she would be right back. She returned a few minutes later, smiled, and told me to consider the matter closed and to have a great rest of my day. I'm guessing she went and spoke with the HR Director who, according to his Linkedin, has a JD in law.

I've since learned that the person in question regularly runs to HR about similar such things. All I know is that I will now always address this person by their last name from here on out. Can't wait until their review folder shows up on my desk next month. ;)