My first name is Lou. (Louis if I'm being formal, but let's not get started on Louis/Luis. I live in Southern California… just how often do you think they get my East Coast Italian first name spelled right on the first try?)
I've always had to deal with people getting my name wrong. My last name, which is about as phonetic as it gets, gave grade school teachers horrors and it wasn't till I got to UCI that I had instructors that breezed through it. I always figured that was because of the high Asian population at UCI. Compared to those names, my last name was a breeze.
Telemarketers are another pain, with rampant mispronunciation that runs the gamut from understandable to unforgivable. Of course, it makes it easy for me when they ask for Mr. Espinoza, since he really doesn't live here. But really… if you're trying to sell me something, don't you at least TRY to get the name right?
My latest pet peeve, however, is the coffee bar/sandwich place "what's your name" bs. Thanks for the attempts to personalize things guys, but if you constantly fail to get my name right, it's not doing it's job. I can't tell you how many times I've seen "Lue" on my coffee cup, but at least I can say it looks vaguely Asian, so there's some justification in that spelling (well, as long as they weren't looking at me when they wrote the name). My favorite blunder has to be the time someone wrote Lue on my cup and the guy called out "Ivy" when my coffee was ready. Guess the cursive L must have looked like an I, so now I'm some girl named Ivy. I got the funniest look when I picked up my coffee, too.
But seriously… Blue? Who the hell out there is named Blue? And, even if you're some ex-hippie's love child, saddled with one of those wonderfully random names, full of celestial meaning (you know, like Ambrosia. Very few of you will get that reference), what's the likelihood you're going to get stuck with a name like Blue, for Christ's sake? I mean, how many people named Blue are coming into Starbucks on a daily basis?
That's it… from now on I'm Howard. Or Irving. Whatever… as long as it's not Blue.
I've always had to deal with people getting my name wrong. My last name, which is about as phonetic as it gets, gave grade school teachers horrors and it wasn't till I got to UCI that I had instructors that breezed through it. I always figured that was because of the high Asian population at UCI. Compared to those names, my last name was a breeze.
Telemarketers are another pain, with rampant mispronunciation that runs the gamut from understandable to unforgivable. Of course, it makes it easy for me when they ask for Mr. Espinoza, since he really doesn't live here. But really… if you're trying to sell me something, don't you at least TRY to get the name right?
My latest pet peeve, however, is the coffee bar/sandwich place "what's your name" bs. Thanks for the attempts to personalize things guys, but if you constantly fail to get my name right, it's not doing it's job. I can't tell you how many times I've seen "Lue" on my coffee cup, but at least I can say it looks vaguely Asian, so there's some justification in that spelling (well, as long as they weren't looking at me when they wrote the name). My favorite blunder has to be the time someone wrote Lue on my cup and the guy called out "Ivy" when my coffee was ready. Guess the cursive L must have looked like an I, so now I'm some girl named Ivy. I got the funniest look when I picked up my coffee, too.
But seriously… Blue? Who the hell out there is named Blue? And, even if you're some ex-hippie's love child, saddled with one of those wonderfully random names, full of celestial meaning (you know, like Ambrosia. Very few of you will get that reference), what's the likelihood you're going to get stuck with a name like Blue, for Christ's sake? I mean, how many people named Blue are coming into Starbucks on a daily basis?
That's it… from now on I'm Howard. Or Irving. Whatever… as long as it's not Blue.
Comments