Just call me by my name!!

[BTECBetty]

I have a four-syllable name, which I hate being shortened. Yes, it’s long, but it’s not difficult to pronounce, so if people try to shorten it, I just correct them and tell them I prefer my full name. Most people just apologise and don’t do it again.

Except one colleague. No matter how many times I say “My name is X”, she will still try to shorten it to Y. What makes it even more frustrating is the shortened version she uses isn’t even an accepted shortening of my name - think calling me “Jenny” instead of “Genevieve”. She definitely knows she is doing it, as when I’ve picked her up on it, she makes a big performance of using the shortened name again the next time and then saying “Sorry, I mean X” - every time. No one forgets every time.

Anyway, today was once too often. I snapped that my name is X, I want to be called X - not Y, not Z or any other invented version of my actual name. I pointed out that I’ve said this time and time again. She went off doing a hurt face, muttering about how I didn’t need to be stroppy about it.

I wouldn’t give a damn if it was just her saying she was upset - she’s clearly never given a toss if I’m upset. But now our manager has got involved. He took me to one side and said what I said “Could have come across as aggressive”, and that maybe I could have asked more calmly. I pointed out that I had asked calmly several times and got nowhere. He tried to laugh it off, saying different people just had different preferences about these things, and that maybe colleague found using my full name a bit formal. I stood my ground and said she didn’t get a preference about someone else’s name - my name is mine, and I don’t want to be called anything else.

There wasn’t really much my manager could say to that, but I still feel like he’s making it my fault rather than hers, when she’s the one doing something wrong. I’m now sitting on a bench down the road from the office munching on a pasty, hoping it doesn’t rain, because a) I want comfort food as I’m pissed off and b) I don’t want to sit in our break room and have her come up to me and pretend to be all “I didn’t mean to upset yooooo”, when I know very well she’ll go back to shortening my name tomorrow.

I’ve reached the point where I want to raise this formally, even if it just forces my manager to acknowledge that he can’t blame this on me. WWYD?

Having a tantrum in the work place over someone's mispronunciation of your name, is deeply unprofessional.

I have a 6 syllable first name that people struggle with. I sometimes light-heartedly say the full name if they cut it short, often I just carry on. I know they mean me when they say for example (not my actual name) "Rupe" instead of "Rupert"

and it doesn't matter one iota.

Well done @BTECBetty for standing up to this absolutely ridiculous behaviour. Your co worker is an arse but your manager is too!

Names are an important part of people’s identities.

But @BTECBetty tried, on numerous occasions, to ask her colleague politely to stop shortening her name, @Flyswats - and her colleague has ignored all the polite requests - isn’t that unprofessional too?

Some people don’t mind others shortening their name or using whatever nickname they choose - but some people really do mind - like my mum. She was Jennifer, and abhorred Jen or Jenny. And it is her name, her identity, and she had every right to choose the name she was to be called. Repeatedly using a shortening or nickname when you have been asked many times to use the full name isn’t an innocent action - it’s deliberate disrespect, in many cases. Why should people let that slide?

My name matters to me - it is a big part of who I am. Why should anyone else have the right to change a part of who I am?

Yes, it's a "dick move" and it's also trivial and childish. And caring about it is also trivial and childish.

I can understand people being annoyed by these office antics but I can also sympathise with the manager who has to try to calm all this nonsense down.

I've only read the opening post, but I'm immediately on your side, OP! If you are (for example) named Elizabeth, and you've made clear that's what you want to be called, why on earth should you be happy if a colleague calls you Liz, or Beth, or another variant? Particularly if you have already made this point to the person in question.

You are perfectly entitled to politely ask people to call you by the name you want to be known as.

I write as someone with a name ending with an 'a' who gets annoyed when people ignore that (think being called Joanne rather than Joanna), but your misnaming would annoy me so much more.

I can't fathom why your manager, or anyone else, could possibly think you are being unreasonable about this. (Unless you swore at the colleague/physically attacked them, of course!)

if the complete twit of a colleague could just use OPs given name rather than a random name, this wouldn't happen.

all the manager has to do is speak to the twit and tell her to use the correct name.

not hard is it?

Who are you to tell someone that being repeatedly called a name that is not your name is trivial and childish? It’s not. It’s bullying. And as is so often that case, when the bullied finally snaps, they are blamed, not the bully.

Who are you to say that someone’s name isn’t important? And this person hasn’t got her name “slightly wrong”.

I’m guessing you’re a bit of a workplace bully with all your minimising.

So if my name is Abishola or Folake (which is the name of the actress who plays Abishola in the TV show) then it should be okay to call me Abby or Fo repeatedy after I have said that is not my name.

If my name is Siobhan - you say Vauny instead every time - after being asked repeatedly not to call me that.

If you are Catherine and your male boss keeps calling you Kitty.

Can't you see that deliberately misnaming people or using unwelcome nicknames repeatedly on purpose is bullying behaviour.

People who respond negatively calling you stroppy or having a tantrum OP are of the same ilk as Greg Wallace oops my pants fell down but it’s you being an arse for being offended.
I’s love to see them calling “ Muhammad” in the workplace “M” just because they feel like it, or better yet, self-identifying “Steve” as “Eve” because they are so cool that names mean nothing or very little.

@BTECBetty You have my sympathy. I have an uncommon four syllable name. It is never shortened. MIL tried it. Once. A misogynistic academic tried it. Once.

She has clocked it gets under your skin and is winding you up. It's bullying designed to get a reaction. In old fashioned MNet terms, she isn't even an Atrocious Cnut. She's just a Cnut.

Did I say it was ok anywhere at all?

NO.

Of course its crap and its not ok

But it is MORE unprofessional to have a TANTRUM in the workplace

than get someone's name wrong.

How many times to I have to type this for you to understand, that is all I am saying.

If it's bullying, it's pretty feeble bullying that most people would ignore.

The OP snapped back, and who knows, that may also have solved the problem. No need for further histrionic escalation.

It's ironic that some have compared this to the insistence on "preferred pronouns", which is true bullying, as it's institutions trying to force people to replace their realistic worldview with misogynistic transgender ideology.

Speaking sternly to someone that you have already spoken to less sternly multiple previous times is not having a tantrum. It's enforcing a boundary with the amount of emphasis needed. Name changer colleague is upset because she's been called out for her poor behaviour so has involved the manager (who hasn't got the full picture and how awful the name changer colleague has been to OP)

Honestly I couldn't get this upset about it. I have a long name that people mispronounce and get wrong constantly - I often get called a completely different name. I had one person in my childhood who also shortened it to a name I didn't like. But honestly it's not worth getting het up about. I certainly wouldn't be constantly correcting someone, or putting in grievances, or snapping at someone over it. I have way more important things to worry about.

I think she does it on purpose to be honest! She knows how to push your buttons and she pushing the boundaries to get a reaction from you. And she is way out of order……….appearing hurt and upset to get management on her side. Go to work, and the very first time she uses an incorrect version of your name put in a formal complaint and don’t let it go until you get a resolution.

In this case I don't think it's really about the name - it's one of those office dynamics where someone is doing something to wind up or needle another person deliberately - if you've never experienced it you are lucky.

Sometimes it's something like constantly borrowing someone's equipment, or moving a chair, or leaving you out of email chains, or pointing out loudly every time someone gets up to use the loo or get a cup of tea "up AGAIN Barbara?"

Excuse me @RosesAndHellebores, what is wrong with the name Cnut? My baby cousin is called Cnut. It's a perfectly respectable Danish name!

👏 very funny.

My friends name is Felicity, she gets Fliss, Liss, Flee and worst of all she says is Flick. She just call her by her name!

People shorten my name all the time… I correct them….pisses me off no end… even offer them a nickname and people still don’t use it….’ People are just fucking rude!

I totally get it. I have been at my workplace for 8 years and the amount of people that pronounce my name wrong, even though I have corrected them numerous times, is just ridiculous. I don’t even correct them anymore as it’s just embarrassing (I gave that up in about the third year I was there). But obviously if introducing myself I pronounce it correctly and everyone in my direct team does get it right, so I don’t understand how others overhear this and still get it wrong. They even spell it wrong in the body of emails (spelling it the way they have incorrectly pronounced it, whereas the actual spelling is how it sounds) and yet they’ve managed to use the correct email address.

Anyway, it’s not bullying. It’s just people who really couldn’t care less about others.

No I have experienced that and if it’s deliberate to irritate, that is of course completely different. Personally though I think the best thing to do with these people is not react. They do it more the more annoyed you get.

😉And true.
Thought you'd appreciate it......