Mistaken for another Indian colleague

[GreenEggsAndShame]

Not the first time this has happened but I'm one of 2 Indian women in my office and there are colleagues who can't tell us apart. We look very different, I'm slight built she's not. Very different facial features and she has dyed brown hair. Im not sure how to react to this? Do I correct and shrug it off? What else can I do or say?

I have blonde hair, so does a colleague, people always mix us up 🤷‍♀️

I mix names up quite often. Sometimes it's because they share a distinguishing feature, like hair or skin colour, but often it's because my brain has made some random, annoying connection between them - like that they're both nice people, or they both smile a lot! Or even because I was just thinking about a different person.

I especially worry if I confuse names of people from a different ethnicity. I'd hate anyone to think I'm being racist when that's the last thing I intend. My brain just lets me down sometime.

I don't think it's necessarily racism as such. Getting people muddled up for all sorts of stupid reasons is really common.

It's shit, lazy and could be considered casual racism. It could also be sexism or ageism. But it's crap, whichever it is.

I work in a school that had lots of international students, especially a lot from China. I try really hard to remember all their names, but it’s challenging. One class I only see once a week so I don’t get to know them as well, and the tiny out of date thumbnail photo on the roll isn’t much help. I tend to use hair colour and style or things like glasses to remember students names so with Asian students this is super hard. I’m not saying I get them wrong fequently but it’s definitely harder.

even more so because they all give themselves an English name to use and there is a few English names that are really popular that get used a lot. I once had 3 Chinese students called Kevin in my class for instance.

It feels lazy because it is. I’m
convinced that I have an issue with facial recognition in general.

I know a couple of Chinese women who have a similar length hairstyle. I don’t have a hope in telling them apart. I worked with two black women. Two - in an office of hundreds - I was pretty friendly with one of them but as soon as she put a new wig on, I didn’t recognise her.

Calling it racism when it is just being lazy isn’t right either. The second woman I mentioned above made so many complaints about racism that people actively avoided her.

I am absolutely rubbish with names, and not sure why. I tend to mix up for example Darrell and Darren. We have a Darrell in our office, and I have to actually pause before I use his name as quite often I call him Darren instead. Likewise the name Kerry and Kelly. I’m sure it annoys the hell out of people, but I literally can’t stop myself doing it!

I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this OP. I agree with you. If it happened once or twice, then you could explain it away with all these excuses. Doing it repeatedly is just lazy. Next time, smile quizzically and say “We look nothing alike”. This has worked for me.

Yes I read this too.

This was meant to be in the South Asian thread. I was hoping to get experiences from other S.Asian women.

Thank you, I will try this!

Also felt embarrassed as people seated around me started laughing in the most recent incident. Like it was trivial. But it made me very uncomfortable to be spoke to as if I was the other lady (not in same department).

When I was at school, people were always mixing me up with my friend who was about a foot taller than me and much thinner. I suppose we had vaguely similar colouring, and similarly earnest ways of talking. I suppose I'm just saying it might not be racist. People are generally lazy about observation.

It’s really not necessarily laziness or racism. Some people (I’m one of them) just have real problems recognising faces even of people they have seen repeatedly. I find watching TV and films challenging because I can’t always tell characters apart - Billions was particularly challenging for me for example because I couldn’t distinguish between two of the lead characters - the investigator and Damien Lewis’s right hand man even after 3 seasons.

I’ve been in regular meetings at work and been unable to distinguish between two male colleagues of the same ethnicity as me after several times of meeting. I’ve introduced myself to the same contemporary at another company multiple times at industry events because I don’t recognise them. Starting a new job is challenging because it takes me a really long time to learn who is who and for some people I never get it.

One of my children is even worse than me. As a toddler she did not recognise me when the nanny took her to a doctors appointment and I met them in the waiting room. She did not recognise her class teacher of two years when she met her outside school.

It is no different to being dyslexic or dyspraxia or having aphasia. It’s just a slight disability affecting your brain processing and whilst you can learn some tricks to minimise opportunities for embarrassment - I try to add everyone I’ve ever met on LinkedIn immediately so I can remind myself what they look like immediately I go into meetings and try to avoid using people’s names where I can - but I can’t teach myself to do something my brain is simply not capable of doing. Believe me I’ve tried!

The apologism/dismissiveness on this thread is frankly embarrassing.

What exactly do people think racism is? It isn't always bellowing explicit slurs at people. It also takes the form of microaggressions that may or may not be intentional (everyone surely knows about unconscious bias these days) but it doesn't mean OP should have to deal with it. It's for her colleagues to sort themselves out!

In this case, to spell it out, the micro aggression is people (not of the same ethnicity as OP) not valuing her identity or individuality enough to bother learning and remembering her name. This is because on some level they see her (and her other South Asian colleague) as being "lesser than".
It may be subconscious. But put it this way, they aren't mixing up OP with a white colleague she sits next to are they? They're confusing her with the only other South Asian in the office.

It shows that they're reducing both of these women to their ethnicity. When colleagues see OP that's the predominant thing they see...not her role, or what team she's part of, otherwise they'd be able to distinguish between the two South Asian colleagues! And that isn't just "lazy" - it's rude and it's a form of prejudice.

Now - in terms of what to do? I liked PP suggestion "but we look nothing alike". You could also just look very blank and say any of the following:

"who are you talking to?"
"no, she's the other one" (and point to your colleague)
"that's not my name"
"why do you confuse me and X?"

And let them squirm. Let the silence grow uncomfoetabke. **It's not your job to bail anyone out.

Ah so sorry @greeneggsandshame
I hadn't clocked the board title. I just chucked myself in from active. I hope you find the support you need to deal with this issue.

I’ve been called all sorts at work. When there’s a racial element it’s shit, but it’s hard to pin it down to that when it happens to others as well.

Some people are just really bad at recognising faces and linking them to names quickly. If you are good at it OP it’ll be hard to appreciate that others aren’t. The worst is when you’ve met someone 3 times already and they still don’t recognise you.

It's about variables. White people have more.

Asian people have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.
African people have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.
Chinese people have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.

White people can have blonde hair, brown hair, red hair, mousey hair, blue eyes, green eyes, hazel eyes, brown eyes ,grey eyes.

The fewer the variables, the harder is is to discern the difference.

This is because on some level they see her (and her other South Asian colleague) as being "lesser than".

Or they could just be mixing them up because they look alike to them? If people are not used to an ethnicity they find it much harder to differentiate facial features as hair colour is often the same?
When I lived in another country, I was frequently mixed up with someone from the UK due to having a similar accent. We didn’t look alike.

We lived there, we did not speak like them. Thought nothing of it to be honest. Certainly had people having a go because they didn’t particularly like the UK but it was my choice to move there. Sadly couldn’t get a permanent visa to say which I would have done if they had allowed me.

It's not a micro aggression it's just people mixing up two people who they relate to each other by an identifying feature. I am regularly mixed up with my colleague who is a similar age, ethnicity, size etc to me. I don't think anything of it.
I will call my youngest son my brothers name or my daughter the dog's (female) name.

Our brains store names with things to help us to identify that person. So for me a small family female that gets under my feet in the kitchen could be my daughter or my dog.

This. My neighbour (from St. Lucia) called me by another neighbour's name (also Caucasian). When I said "Lucille it's me, "neighbour 1"!"
she waved her hand and laughed and said "Sorry, all you white girls look alike." So yeah it happens

I've been at this company for two years, so it's not like I'm new. This post is under South Asian Mumsnetters, I hope this can be respected.

I have a male colleague who responds to similar 'confusions' by saying light heartedly and with a smile, I'm Mark not John, is it because we're both brown? (His words not mine) , it's direct but he does it in a jokey way, I would hope it would also make the person have a little think about why it's those two colleagues they get mixed up.

Thank you! It's very annoying that this is on South Asian Mumsnetters but people are not respecting this.