I nearly scrolled past your Facebook post. Then I read a line that sounded a little too familiar and clicked through to the website.
A few stories later, I started thinking about something I hadn’t told anyone. It felt too small to bring up. Still does, honestly.
You can call me Martin. I’m a school principal, and I’d prefer to keep my real name private.
Something happened recently that probably wouldn’t have meant much to anyone watching.
But I’m still thinking about it.
A few weeks ago, I was walking through town when I heard someone call out:
“Principal!”
I turned automatically.
Of course I did.
A parent from school was waving at me from across the street.
I smiled.
Walked over.
We talked for a few minutes.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing uncomfortable.
She was nice.
I was nice.
Then she left.
And I stood there thinking:
I wish she had just said my name.
That is the whole confession.
Not because I dislike being a principal.
Not because I am embarrassed by the title.
I’m not.
But sometimes I get tired of feeling like the position arrives before I do.
At school, fine.
That is expected.
Students call me Sir.
Teachers call me Sir.
Parents call me Principal.
People come into my office and address the role.
That makes sense.
But outside school?
Sometimes I want to hear my own name.
Martin.
That’s it.
No title attached.
No reminder.
Just my name.
I started noticing how rarely that happens.
Even staff members I’ve known for years still call me Sir outside school.
We can be standing in a supermarket.
Still Sir.
At a restaurant.
Sir.
Once, I ran into a teacher while buying vegetables.
She said:
“Good evening, Sir.”
I laughed and said:
“You can call me Martin. We’re both holding onions.”
She laughed too.
Then immediately said:
“Yes, Sir.”
There was no hope.
I know why people do it.
Respect.
Habit.
Professional boundaries.
I understand all of that.
And honestly, I probably helped create it.
I’ve never told people not to call me Sir.
I never really thought about it before.
But now I do.
Because sometimes the title feels like it follows me into places where I am trying to be ordinary.
I go for coffee.
I’m still the principal.
I go to the pharmacy.
Principal.
I’m at a family event and someone introduces me:
“This is Martin. He’s a school principal.”
Then the conversation changes.
Immediately.
“What school?”
“How many students?”
“That must be stressful.”
“What do you think about discipline these days?”
And suddenly I am at work again.
Not physically.
But mentally.
I smile.
Answer.
Say the usual things.
I’m used to it.
But every now and then I have this strange urge to interrupt and say:
You know you can ask me something else, right?
Ask me what music I like.
Ask me what I’m reading.
Ask me whether I can cook.
I can’t, by the way.
Not well.
Ask me anything that has nothing to do with school.
I don’t think people mean anything by it.
School principal is an easy thing to remember about someone.
It is probably the first thing people know about me.
So naturally it becomes the first thing they ask about.
Still.
Sometimes I wish they knew something else first.
A friend pointed this out years ago.
We were meeting some people I didn’t know.
He introduced me and just said:
“This is Martin.”
Nothing else.
No job.
No school.
No title.
Just my name.
I remember feeling weirdly relieved.
Nobody asked about education.
Nobody asked me for an opinion about schools.
Nobody told me about a bad headteacher they had twenty years ago.
We talked about food.
Travel.
Football.
Someone complained about parking.
Perfect.
For almost two hours, nobody knew what I did.
I loved it.
Then eventually someone asked.
“What do you do?”
I said:
“I work in education.”
I don’t even know why I said it like that.
I could have said principal.
That is what I usually say.
But I didn’t want the conversation to change yet.
He nodded and asked something else.
That was it.
No follow-up.
I remember thinking:
Oh.
So this is what it feels like when the title does not take over.
I think about that night more often than I probably should.
Maybe because it reminded me that I can still exist in a room before people decide who I am based on what I do.
There is something freeing about being around people who have no idea what position you hold.
They don’t expect you to sound wise.
They don’t expect you to be composed.
They don’t expect you to have the answer.
If you say something stupid, you’re just a person who said something stupid.
Not:
Interesting thing for a principal to say.
That matters more than I thought it would.
I am more careful than I used to be.
Not only at school.
Everywhere.
I notice it.
If I am in public and I recognize a parent nearby, I become more aware of myself.
How loud am I?
What am I saying?
Am I complaining too much?
Did I just swear?
Please tell me I did not just swear.
It is not that I am living some secret double life.
Nothing exciting.
But I know people connect behavior to the role.
That is part of being visible.
I get it.
Still, sometimes I miss behaving without imagining an invisible school audience.
That sounds dramatic.
Maybe it is.
But once people know you as the principal, you feel like the principal version of yourself gets switched on automatically.
Even when nobody asked for it.
I think that is the part I am struggling with.
Not what people call me.
What the title makes me do to myself.
A few months ago, I was with my brother and his family.
His children do not care that I am a principal.
At all.
To them I’m just Uncle Martin.
They interrupt me.
Ignore my advice.
Tell me when my jokes are bad.
No respect whatsoever.
Beautiful.
One of them shouted my name from another room:
“Martin!”
Not Sir.
Not Principal.
Martin.
I remember answering and feeling something I cannot really explain.
Normal.
That is probably the word.
Normal.
No role.
No expectation.
No one waiting for me to lead the conversation.
Just someone calling me because they wanted me to come look at something stupid on their phone.
I think school leaders underestimate how good it can feel when nobody needs the title.
There are days when the title matters.
You need authority.
You need clarity.
People need to know who is responsible.
I am not trying to erase that.
But I also think there is a danger when the title becomes the only way people know how to relate to you.
Or worse, the only way you know how to relate to yourself.
That is harder to admit.
Sometimes I introduce myself as Principal before anyone asks.
Maybe that says something too.
“Hi, I’m Martin. I’m the principal at…”
Why do I do that?
Habit, probably.
Pride, maybe.
Context.
But sometimes I wonder if I use the title because it gives people something clear to know about me.
Without it, I have to be more interesting.
That is unfortunate.
I’m joking.
Mostly.
Still, there is truth in it.
The title gives you a ready-made identity.
You do not have to explain much.
People understand the role.
Responsible.
Educated.
In charge.
Serious.
Then one day you start wondering whether they know anything about the person underneath all of that.
Do they know I hate early mornings even though I arrive early every day?
Do they know I collect old records?
Do they know I am terrible at remembering birthdays?
Do they know I sometimes drive around for no reason just because I do not want to go straight home?
Do they know I can spend half an hour choosing what to order and then get the same thing I always get?
Those things sound stupid.
That is why I like them.
They belong to the part of me that does not need to be impressive.
I think I need more of that.
Not more hobbies for “work-life balance.”
Not another self-care routine.
I mean more situations where nobody cares what position I hold.
Where I do not have to represent anything.
Where I can just be Martin.
There is one coffee shop I go to sometimes where nobody knows what I do.
At least I don’t think they do.
The staff know my order.
That is all.
No one calls me Sir.
No one asks about school.
No one says:
“Busy time of year?”
They just say:
“Morning, Martin.”
I like that more than I should.
Maybe that is why I keep going back.
It feels like a tiny place where the title cannot find me.
I sit there.
Drink coffee.
Read.
Watch people.
Nobody needs anything from me.
Sometimes I stay longer than necessary.
I suppose now I know why.
A few weeks ago one of the staff members asked:
“What do you actually do for work?”
I laughed.
I almost did not want to tell her.
Then I said:
“I’m a school principal.”
She looked surprised.
“Oh. Okay.”
Then she asked:
“Same coffee?”
That was it.
I wanted to hug her.
I didn’t.
That would have created a very different confession.
But I appreciated it.
She knew.
Nothing changed.
I was still Martin who drinks the same coffee too often.
Maybe that is what I want.
Not for people to ignore the job.
Just for the job not to swallow everything else.
I want people to know I am a principal.
And then keep knowing me after that.
I want my name to mean more than the title beside it.
I do not know if other principals think about this.
Maybe they don’t.
Maybe some people love the title.
Maybe it never feels heavy to them.
Good.
But sometimes when someone calls me Sir outside school, there is a little part of me that wants to say:
Just call me Martin.
Please.
I have been Sir all day.
I know the title is part of me.
I just don’t want it to be all of me.
So I suppose that is my question.
How do you stay connected to your own name when everyone else knows you by the position?
How do you keep parts of yourself that are not professional, useful, responsible, or in charge?
And do other school leaders ever feel weirdly relieved when someone treats them like an ordinary person?
Because I do.
More than I expected.
Thank you for giving us somewhere the title does not have to speak first.
— Martin
FROM THE GOOD PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
Martin, one sentence in your confession stands out:
“I have been Sir all day.”
There is a lot inside that.
A title can be respectful.
It can be meaningful.
It can represent years of work, responsibility, trust, and authority.
But a title can also become something you wear for so many hours that you stop noticing when you are still wearing it.
Even after school.
Even in the supermarket.
Even with friends.
Even when nobody needs the principal anymore.
That may be the real issue here.
Not that people call you Sir.
But that the title keeps activating a version of you.
More careful.
More measured.
More aware.
More responsible.
Less ordinary.
And there is nothing wrong with wanting somewhere that version of you can switch off.
There is also something revealing about the coffee shop.
The reason it feels good may not be because nobody respects you there.
Quite the opposite.
They relate to you without the position being the basis of the relationship.
You are not valuable because you are the principal.
You are just Martin.
Regular order.
Regular table.
Regular person.
That can be grounding.
School leadership creates a lot of role-based relationships.
People speak to you partly because of what you can decide.
What you can approve.
What you know.
What you are responsible for.
Even warm relationships inside school are still shaped by the position.
That is unavoidable.
Which is why relationships and places outside that structure matter.
You need somewhere you do not have authority.
Somewhere you do not need to be impressive.
Somewhere people can disagree with you without worrying about what happens Monday morning.
Somewhere nobody needs anything from your role.
You mentioned your family.
Your nieces and nephews interrupt you.
Ignore your advice.
Tell you your jokes are bad.
That is not a lack of respect.
That is another form of intimacy.
They know you outside hierarchy.
School leaders need that.
Not because hierarchy is wrong.
Because no person should live inside hierarchy all the time.
There is another part of your confession worth noticing.
You sometimes introduce yourself through the position before anyone asks.
That is very normal.
But perhaps occasionally you can experiment with not doing that.
“My name is Martin.”
Full stop.
Let people discover the rest later.
Not because you are hiding the job.
Because your occupation does not always need to be the first piece of information people receive about you.
The same applies to conversations with people who already know.
You are allowed to gently change the terms.
If a colleague sees you outside school and says:
“Good evening, Sir,”
you can smile and say:
“Martin is fine here.”
Some people will still say Sir.
Habit is strong.
You do not have to fight them.
The point is not controlling what everyone calls you.
The point is remembering what you call yourself.
You are not only:
Principal.
Administrator.
Decision-maker.
Supervisor.
School leader.
You are Martin.
And Martin gets to exist without turning everything he does into an extension of leadership.
There is also something important in your desire to be ordinary.
People sometimes hear “ordinary” as if it means insignificant.
It does not.
Ordinary life is where much of identity actually lives.
The coffee order.
The bad cooking.
The music you like.
The relative who makes fun of you.
The place where nobody needs your opinion.
The afternoon where nothing important happens.
Those things are not interruptions from your real life.
They are your real life too.
And perhaps the healthiest thing about your confession is that you are not asking to escape the principalship.
You are not rejecting it.
You simply want the title to occupy the right amount of space.
That is different.
A healthy identity can include:
I am a principal.
without becoming:
I am only the principal.
Those two sentences look similar.
They are not.
One describes something meaningful about you.
The other consumes everything else.
And maybe the way to prevent that is not some dramatic reinvention.
It is small acts of remembering.
Use your name.
Keep friendships where your position is irrelevant.
Go places where nobody knows what you do.
Maintain interests that are useless to the school.
Let people know things about you that have no professional value.
Notice when you automatically switch into principal mode and ask whether the situation actually requires it.
And perhaps sometimes, when someone calls you Sir outside school, simply remind yourself:
They are speaking to the position. I do not have to become the whole position just because I heard the title.
There is freedom in that.
You can respond politely.
Then go back to buying onions.
There is one more thing worth holding onto.
One day, your title will change.
Maybe retirement.
Maybe another role.
Maybe something completely different.
When that happens, your name should not feel unfamiliar.
So keep using it now.
Keep building a life where people know it.
Where people call it.
Where it means something beyond the office door.
The goal is not for everyone to stop seeing the principal.
The goal is for you never to lose sight of the person they are talking to.
So when you hear:
“Sir.”
Maybe somewhere inside, you can still hear:
Martin.
That name was there first.
And it will still be there when the title is gone.
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