Touchy subject in a place like this, but it might be helpful to provide a dissenting point of view on the topic. Recently had a phone call regarding a mishandled shipment (Fedex, UPS, etc) that was supposed to be delivered to me and ended up being held for pickup. I had no idea that the shipment was being held and was expecting it to be delivered. Got a phone call that went something like this:
Me: “Hello?”
Agent: “Hi, I’m calling from XYZ company, trying to reach John Doe.”
Me: “Yeah, I’m John – what’s up?”
Agent: “We’re holding a package delivery for them at [address location] and they need to come pick it up by [X date].”
Me (very confused): “Wait, what package are you talking about?”
Agent: “It’s packages for John Doe. They need to come pick it up.”
Y’all get the gist – it took me almost a minute of this kind of back & forth to finally realize that the agent was using third person indirect plural form to refer to me even though he was speaking directly to me individually. Gotta say, it was insulting to be addressed in the inanimate form and I told him so. He then switched to passive voice (“Well, the packages need to be picked up”) but not once did he address me directly. Frankly, I’d almost rather be addressed as “someone” rather than “they” when a person is speaking directly to me. I still don’t understand why the agent didn’t address me as “you” since he was speaking directly to me and had confirmed who I was.
Before anyone says it, this is very different from being referred to indirectly in the third person. Say person A posts in the forums that she met me and says something like “I met the client and we watched a movie together”, then person B responds asking “what kind of movies did they prefer?”. In that case, I’m the subject of a conversation between other people, and am not being addressed directly.
I’m not going to pretend to understand all the variations of pronouns discussed on this site, but my default when addressing a person directly is “you” or by name, and generally I try to be polite to individuals unless the person has given me a reason to be rude. It was, from my perspective, very rude for the agent to speak to me that way - "degrading" and "dehumanizing" both come to mind as descriptives.
Ok, I’m putting my soapbox away now.