"Alice, Professor X is here in my office. He doesn't like the room he's teaching in, and wants to trade classrooms with you," said N, the department manager, over the phone.
Professor X felt that the blackboard mechanism and the platform at the front of his classroom were dangerous, and he wanted a safer classroom. I agreed to trade rooms.
This was soon after I arrived at UCI as a senior professor. Since N had known Professor X longer, and he was at a lower rank in the hierarchy than I was, I didn't understand why N used his last name and title, but not mine. So the next time she did that, I asked her. She smiled, and said she didn't know.
This sort of thing has happened repeatedly, to me and other women. I hoped it would happen less as I got older, or as the world got better. It's not that I mind being called by my first name. It's that I'd like the same respect as Professor X.