To find being referred to by my initials at work really f*ing annoying

[cricketmum84]

Yah yah I know totally first world problem.

But a colleague of mine has started referring to her entire team and now me just by our initials rather than our names. Eg "thanks for doing that AN" rather than for example "thanks for doing that Anna"

I don't have a common name and there is nobody else in the company with my forename (3000+ employees) so it's not like I'm going to get confused with anyone else.

We have a very close working relationship and are quite friendly yet this whole only using initials thing feels really impersonal and offensive to me.

AIBU unreasonable to be offended by this? And should I say something??

@UnconvincingUsername

At one point at work there were 5 of us with the same initials. People still insisted on using them, particularly in minutes. So I decided to assume that, on the balance of probabilities, it was one of the other UUs and not my task to worry about.

Excellent work there.

BS

We did this at my office, with the ones who had “catchy” initials. I haven’t worked with one of them in 6 years and I still call her by her initials 🤣

As she's lovely, and you work closely, you can easily say "actually my name is....., I don't like being called by my initials" the next time she does it in a Skype chat.

I have to say I didn't realise that I was supposed to get offended about this.

So what you mean is that if you name were Anna Smith, and a collegaue was William Jones she'd write something in an email like "thank you to AS for sending out the document I requested and also a thank you to WJ for telephoning the client yesterday."

If it's like this I can't really understand what the issue is.

Just say to her, " please don't refer to me as AN, I prefer to be called Anna". Simple, direct.

@PaxMalmKallax

It’s completely normal where I work - secondary school teacher.

We address each other by initials, refer to people in emails using them - always have done in the 10+ years I’ve been in this school

And the little adaptations to make certain combinations acceptable -

Whilst
First Name Initial, First and second letter of the surname
First and second letter of the surname, First Name Initial

work for most, with a couple of variations where there is more than one member of staff with the same, there are always the ones whose combinations come out as

PIS
CAK
ARS
DIK
NOB
JIZ

and suchlike.

Whilst it's all very well saying 'just use their name, then', when you have two Jeremys, seven Susans/Suzannes/Suzannas/Zuzannas/Susies/Sue, four Lynnes/Lin/Linda/Lynda, five Davids/Daves, two Owens, six people with surnames that match first names of other staff and a selection pack of Vicky, Victoria, Vicki, Wiktoria and four Alices, it's a damn sight easier to use the initials rather than spell the name wrong and suggest that the history teacher is responsible for the A Level PE assessment. Especially as the initials are used by SIMS.

People do that to me all the time at work! 2 different reasons:

1 - formally, everyone is known by initials across various docs so that often is used in emails as well to refer to various staff
2 - as a nickname, if an email starts "Hi KB" its meant affectionately, that's also started in speech too so people will call some people by their initials in person but its not meant maliciously (or to undermine their actual name). I get it more than most probably because my initials lend themselves to that kind of nickname (e.g. initials like KB, JT work but somehow GS, WN don't!)

If she's lovely and you usually get on i'd be sensitive about how you raise it as she will probably be upset/embarrassed that its a problem.

Another secondary teacher here - very common for teachers to be referred to by initials. But if someone was writing an email to me direct, i would hope it said 'Dear Reallife' not Dear RLGITW !

YABU
This is such a trivial problem and you are lucky if this is your only problem at work.
I have a very senior role in a very large company and everyone refers to me using my initials whether it’s in meetings, emails, casual conversations etc In fact they never use my name. Some use my full initials (first name last names) and some (my closer colleagues/friends) call me only using my first name initial.
I could not care less. I have bigger issues to deal with at work.

We do it in my office between colleagues who are v friendly. So, doesn’t seem weird or rude to me. It’d be a sign of work affection. I prefer my initials to any short versions of my first name, too.

In our office the system logs any actions you have personally made with your initials and a number, so quite common for inter teams to refer to your system initial.

My reports don’t use the system, but if they did, I don’t think I would dare call them by their system name! Not personal and a bit rude imo.

However I will contact a manager and say PT12 has made this error can you ask them to correct it please.

"Change your name to Francis (or Frances) Underwood ?"

:)

@MumChats

People do that to me all the time at work! 2 different reasons:

1 - formally, everyone is known by initials across various docs so that often is used in emails as well to refer to various staff
2 - as a nickname, if an email starts "Hi KB" its meant affectionately, that's also started in speech too so people will call some people by their initials in person but its not meant maliciously (or to undermine their actual name). I get it more than most probably because my initials lend themselves to that kind of nickname (e.g. initials like KB, JT work but somehow GS, WN don't!)

If she's lovely and you usually get on i'd be sensitive about how you raise it as she will probably be upset/embarrassed that its a problem.

Yes this my worry! I would hate her to feel upset that she had been unintentionally offending me all this time.

My name is Thomasina Wendy Annelise Taylor. If people are going to refer to me by initials, I’ll be insisting they incorporate those of my middle names too.

@Piglet89 does it annoy you even mire than the regular Brit when you hear an American pronounce it “twot” in films/tv?

@MiddleClassProblem

That annoys me the most. I’m currently not speaking with any of my US colleagues.

In all seriousness, @cricketmum84 my husband and I call eachother by our initials!!! (My maiden initials). We saw “The Iron Lady” at the cinema and apparently Margaret and Dennis Thatcher did it (MT and DT). We started doing it and...it just kinda stuck!

About the only aspect of Thatcher I will ever emulate I imagine.

They do that at my place of work too. I find it weird and don't especially like it, but I have bigger fish to fry so tolerate it gracefully.

KRs,
RKFD

Oh god I worked somewhere once where I got told off for 'wasting time' by writing my name in emails instead of my initials.

It was insane, someone else had my initials and as I don't have a middle name I had to add on the second letter of my surname. Let's say I'm Sarah Burman but there's already a Sophie Bolton who is established as SB. So I have to be SBu, pronounced 'Ess-boo' (yes, they called me that instead of Sarah).

So on my second day I left a note for my boss: "Alexandra, Mark in HR rang, please call him back, Sarah'. I actually got shouted at for wasting time writing 'Alexandra and Sarah'. It was ridiculous, I'd spent 22 years signing my name as 'Sarah' so I kept typing Sarah and having to go back and amend it to bloody SBu. I worked in a corporate role too so was contacted by people all over the company who called me Sarah but I wasn't allowed to sign off as my own fucking name when replying.

They were awful in many other ways also, you weren't allowed to go to lunch or have a drink or snack without permission - on day one I said I needed to eat at noon whether snack or lunch as I was due medicine for my disability which needed to be taken with food. The snack was banned and they didn't let me have lunch until 2:30 making me 2.5 hours late for my meds. I was in pain as the meds included painkillers.

I walked out on day 3 and never returned.

Shame she doesn’t work with our current PM.

My old work place used to do this - they thought it was cool [eye roll]

I do this all the time ! Shit

I do this a lot. It saves time. Hardly a big deal.

And yes standard in my office, we all do it. It's just fast.

Saves time?? It must save on average 2 seconds, if you have standard names. Writing 2 letters instead of 10/12.

Wow, what on earth do you do instead with those 2 seconds?!

Even writing say an email every 5 mins, that's 12 an hour. 24 seconds X 8 hours is.... 192 seconds. You gain 3 mins 12 seconds a day
🤣🤣🤣🤣

@BloggersBlog

Saves time?? It must save on average 2 seconds, if you have standard names. Writing 2 letters instead of 10/12.

Wow, what on earth do you do instead with those 2 seconds?!

Even writing say an email every 5 mins, that's 12 an hour. 24 seconds X 8 hours is.... 192 seconds. You gain 3 mins 12 seconds a day
🤣🤣🤣🤣

But that’s like saying instead of doing ctrl X you highlight and cut. Sure the former only save you a second but it’s just easier. Do you type out et cetera instead of etc? Let’s face it, the full stops are even dropped there these days as I have done.