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Having just escaped from university, I learned as a young factory trainee that those in charge addressed the workers with the familiar “du” [you], while weak-minded semi-potentates managed with “man” [one], “er” [he], and “Ihr” [the plural form of you], or some mumbled compromise. Still others excelled at avoiding any direct form of address by using elaborate formulations. The “Ihr” persisted for a long time until the formal “Sie” surfaced bashfully on its way to eventual triumph. I distinctly remember the occasion upon which “Sie” first passed my lips with smoothness and clarity. And when workers were allowed or forced to appear in the factory owner’s office, they remained standing at the door at an appropriate distance. Later on, they were permitted to step closer, but no seating was available. Indeed, to preempt any expression of politeness or any other type of incident, a special tactfulness called for all unused chairs to be removed before the audience was granted. But, in the long run, increased furnishings were unavoidable: chairs were followed by a table, at first a separate one for the workers, and then a common one, at which the proprietor, surrounded by his top people, opened meetings with the workers with: “Dear gentlemen!” In this brief moment of familiarity and others like it, we glimpsed a colorful reflection of the kind of life awakening in the outside world in the widening rush of social reform.