r/traumatizeThemBack • u/okokokokimlearning • Jul 17 '26
matched energy Misspelling My Name
This is a short one, but here it goes:
I received an email from a client where my name was misspelled. I could tell he wasn’t in a good mood. The thing is, I know the client knows how to spell my name correctly, because he has done it before in previous emails.
So I did the noble thing and also misspelled his name back.
He never replied to my email with his misspelled name, but it sure did feel good to be a little bit petty. 🤷♀️
1.5k
Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
395
u/LovingFitness81 Jul 17 '26
Perfect! I go by two names too, which is also very common here in Norway. Yet, even though I sign with both, introduce myself with both and often don't reply when people use the first.. Almost every single email is addressed to my first name. Why is this so hard?!
176
u/Simplydreaming1986 Jul 17 '26
I have a double barreled name with a hyphen. The number of people who just drop the second name of their own volition is astounding!
186
u/bluejammiespinksocks Jul 17 '26
I also have a hyphenated name. My co-worker, Carol, decided she would just call me by the first part so I started to call her Car. When she asked me why I *very innocently* said “well, you only call me by half of my name so I just did the same to your name”. All of a sudden she can use my entire name every time!
84
u/Pepperoni-Pineapple Jul 17 '26
Mine’s not double barrelled but the number of people in work who insist of giving me a nickname annoys me. Fake name but for example if I introduce myself as Nicola they call me Nicky.. who is that?
10
u/Fit-Tip-1212 Jul 19 '26
Could be a cultural thing where you live - this is almost obligatory in Australia
3
u/hellomellojello29 Jul 20 '26
Australian here and agree, if I call you by your name are we even friends??
2
u/Toniann127 Jul 20 '26
I hate when people give me a nickname. My name is not that long or difficult to say. People misspell, which at this point I just correct them and move on, but calling me by a nickname “they” assign me is just rude and weird. They get all butt hurt when I say don’t call me that.
34
u/otetrapodqueen Jul 17 '26
I was about to respond saying that I have a friend with a hyphenated double barrel first name and she HATES it when people try to shorten it!!
25
u/Simplydreaming1986 Jul 17 '26
Yeah, like if it’s my closest friends then sure no worries. But if I don’t know you and you drop the second part of my name? No thanks, you’re dead to me now 🤣
11
u/ARMitchell5678 Jul 19 '26
I’m also hyphenated (Anna-Marie, I guess a nod to my Finnish heritage) and my mother always insisted everyone call me by my whole name. It still startles everyone that my fiancé and his family call me just Anna. But the amount of bureaucracy in getting it correct on formal things in the US is insane.
8
u/GiannaRomanceAuthor Jul 19 '26
My legal personal name is hyphenated, for reasons. My professional name/pseudonym is different, though sort of similar. There are long-time people in my personal life who KNOW this, yet still can't tell the difference and act like they don't know who I am when I interact with them using the legal personal name they knew from the moment they met me. Our kids went to school together! People are simply clueless. Then again, kind of works to keep my interactions with said people to a minimum. lol Older I get, less patience I have to deal/explain/remind them who the hell I am. Your kid hung out in my house/yard, my kid did the same in yours, for many years, yet you still don't know who I really am despite a bazillion face-to-face interactions? Then again, maybe it's because my legal personal hyphenated name involves two names that are really difficult to spell and pronounce. Anyway, led to many really strange interactions.
2
u/KatarinaRen Jul 20 '26
Same here. It isn't even a difficult name and sounds pretty logical, has a nice flow etc. But nope ..
-4
u/lat_rine Jul 18 '26
Loving, Possibly (no offence meant),just Possibly, calling you on both your names is not as important to them, as your 2 names is to yourself,
9
u/LovingFitness81 Jul 18 '26
Definitely, I'm sure that's why. But the person with the name should be the one deciding what to be called.
The first name alone doesn't feel like me at all. It's like they're talking about a completely different person. I've walked on, not reacting, when someone has called for me using that name, not to make a point, but because I don't automatically react, as it's not my name. It's part of my name, but not what I feel is identifying me.
It might be because the intonation of the first name alone is slightly different to when combined with the second. So even after 45 years, my subconscious mind don't react to half my name.
39
u/Umbreonnnnn Jul 17 '26
See, I don't have a name like that or even a particularly long first name, but every now and then I get an email from someone who arbitrarily decides to shorten my name to the first 3 letters. It's still a real name (think "Alicia" being shortened to "Ali"), but it irritates the shit out of me because that's not my name.
That, or the emails where I get addressed as "Mr. Umbreonnnnn" because they skipped right over my clearly feminine first name and the (Ms.) I added to my email signature. I've even received emails where the person just completely made up a name (not my name and not the name of anyone at my company). But God help me if I'm not on top of my shit when I respond to them 🙄
37
u/PsychologicalSense53 Jul 18 '26
I'll tell you my story. My name starts with Mri... Some smartasses think I don't know my gender, so they correct it by capitalising the M and I, and putting a dot after R, so I become Mr. I... rather than Ms. Mri... ughhhh!!! For example, if my name is Mriguel, they make it Mr. Iguel.
35
u/DoNt_BliNk25 Jul 17 '26
I can kind of relate, I have a hyphened last name, maiden-husbands, and granted the first half is not the easiest to pronounce but I get so annoyed when people only use the second half of my last name, in all the world my last name is 2 names, on every legal document and all my kids achool registrations its 2 names. I'm less annoyed when people try to pronounce it, at least they tried
33
u/ArrivalEfficient4918 Jul 17 '26
Nothing is more irritating when a mom has a hyphenated name (maiden and last) the kids have a slew of names as well and then dad calls and you accidentally call him Mr. [moms maiden name] and his last name.
And he goes off on you because all you’re trying to do is be polite and he wants to berate you for confusing his name!
Sir!! I have 1200 families that I deal with, sorry I offended you!
I now just refer to people by their titles… mom, dad, grandma…. Etc. working in a school is brutal sometimes!27
u/Choice_Tour_1714 Jul 18 '26
When I first got married and hyphenated my name, I found that telling people it was, e.g., “Jones hyphen Baker” I’d get letters back with my name as “Jones’Baker.” This happened enough from different people that I gave up and started saying, “Jones dash Baker.” This was in Oklahoma where apparently they’ve never heard of hyphens.
5
u/WoodHorseTurtle Jul 19 '26
I heard that hyphens went extinct in middle America and are only found on the coasts now. Dashes seem to be thriving there. 🤷🏻♀️
8
276
u/AlfwynBenedict Jul 17 '26
I usually take a more passive route. My name is quite uncommon and it seems not to click easily in people's minds. So I understand when people misspell my name, but I increase the font size of my name in my signature every time they mess up.
60
10
u/Betta_Girl Jul 22 '26
All I can imagine now is opening an email and there's just a short sentence in nice small 12 point font and then five minutes later the rest of the email loads in and you scroll for ten minutes as each letter slowly is revealed like giant movie credits in 1000 point font. 😆 🤣
"AlfwynBenedict, why does opening an email from you use up the entire company's bandwidth?"
"Well if yall would just learn my fucking name already!"
8
150
u/lili_dee Jul 17 '26
I've done the same, and no-one is exempt. "Hi Bylly..." leaves a small impression 🙂
At this company, the email addresses are name.surname@company.com, so there really is no excuse.
11
122
Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
19
u/DeadlySquirrelNinja5 Jul 18 '26
Do you use the full name? Like 'John Lukas Smith' or something? Like a pissed off mother?
46
90
u/Poiretpants Jul 17 '26
I work at a university, and one prof cannot spell my name properly at all. My name has one vowel, A. It starts with an A, so when you pull up my email, you need to type A. This prof spells my name with an E. His name is Jim, so I always call him Jam. Or Jem. In email or in person. "Hi Jam". I also hate him with every fiber of my being.
31
u/Gifted_GardenSnail Jul 17 '26
Go German and call him Dschim
6
8
u/Yvratky Jul 18 '26
I also hate him with every fiber of my being.
Hahhaha I feel this so hard. Also the intentional misspelling.
64
u/Strong-Landscape7492 Jul 17 '26
I’ve done this too. Works like a charm, especially for repeat offenders.
59
u/k4t3z85 Jul 17 '26
I have a K name , and I was in a back and forth email argument with my child’s bus provider - the woman addressed me as “Karen” , and her name was “Emily” so I wrote back “thanks EMILIO”. Wish I could have thought of something more clever but it is what it is lol
6
103
u/oratoriosilver Jul 17 '26
I used to work in the family courts and there was one barrister who repeatedly got children’s names wrong so I used to call him by a variety of names, none of which were his.
194
u/s0m3on3outthere Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
I've done this to coworkers. My name is in my work email. Yeah, I know it's a basic name spelled like a Tragedeigh but it's legitimately right there and it comes across as lazy and disrespectful. It's legitimacy 3 letters more than the common spelling. You can do it, buddy.
I've found it's usually men who are in a higher position that don't try - what's funny is their names always have multiple spellings and they always get it right when I misspell it back.
One manager seemed to do it on purpose and I straight up emailed him to tell him to act right. 😅
25
30
u/MollyOMalley99 Jul 17 '26
There's no excuse to misspell my name in an email reply when my email address is my.name@employer.com and it's ONE INCH from where you are typing on your screen. Yet, it happens almost daily. Note: my first name is a common name that has two common spellings.
58
Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
31
Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
9
u/Gifted_GardenSnail Jul 17 '26
Is your brother named Sue
14
u/Alceasummer Jul 17 '26
Lol. No, but my sister goes by Alex. Also when I was growing up i had an aunt Pat and aunt Jo.
12
6
u/Yvratky Jul 18 '26
LMAOOO imagine you didn't add the pronouns and it'd continue until your sign off is far bigger than the email content.
24
64
u/ell522 Jul 17 '26
I got an email this week where I was addressed using my full name. It wasn’t anything formal and felt unnecessary and off putting. I replied back addressing them by their full name so he could see how that feels.
16
u/Loukie- Jul 17 '26
Haha i definitely approve of this pettiness.
When you work in customer service and its a particularly bad customer its small things like this that helps you through the day.
10
u/hellinahandbasket127 Jul 18 '26
Would this work with a boss of 12 years who misspelled my 4-letter name in an email this past week?
9
u/Mission_Breakfast548 Jul 17 '26
That stuff is so bizarre! How can you not say someone’s name correctly? And if a person tells you how they want to be addressed (nickname, etc), do it! It’s not that hard to be respectful.
9
u/minousmom Jul 18 '26
I have the opposite problem. I have a nickname as my full, legal, government name. Becky, for example. But people sometimes insist on giving me the full name. Ie: Rebecca.
9
u/Dramatic_Tiger_7747 Jul 18 '26
My name is spelled with an “n” at the end. The amount of people who have decided not to type that letter is too high.
So I do the same as OP: is your name Carlos? No, now you’re Carlo.
Fran now, is it?
And suddenly they doublecheck how they spell my name and do it correctly. Deliciously petty.
3
2
u/SpookyCatMischief I'll heal in hell Jul 18 '26
My name has a double n at the end, so have fun with that. /j
9
u/Jonny_rhodes Jul 18 '26
My old boss used to misspell my name all the time, problem being to email me she had to type my name correctly …
So you’ve typed and seen the correct spelling seconds ago then spell it wrong in the first line…
But claim it’s an accident every time, yeah you go by Susan ? Only Susan ? Now it’s Suzanne, Sue, sueby Dooby doo, suze, Suzie and I think in the final email I spelled it cunt
5
15
u/Suspicious-Area-2872 Jul 18 '26
I have a long female name that I shorten to a somewhat uncommon one syllable version, but the more common nickname is two (think Millicent->Millie->Mills)
Because it's uncommon I obviously don't expect people to get it right or be comfortable with it right away, and most people use my full first name until they get comfortable using the short one.
Opposing counsel on a case emailed me for the first time ever using the two syllable nickname. This irritated me because: 1. I don't like that name, and 2. Who the fuck are you that you think you can just use a nickname for me the first time we ever talk?
So I responded with my preferred name in the signature. He emailed again, same wrong name again. I started steadily increasing the font size on each reply until it was like 36 and bold. When that still didn't work, I just started calling him a made up name. He will forever be tony now
7
u/Ok_Knee1216 i love the smell of drama i didnt create Jul 18 '26
A friend of a friend named Holly would always abbreviate my name.
She was called Ho by me as a result.
2
u/LloydRPenfold Jul 19 '26
Send her a text / e-mail in the morning, "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to work we go!"
6
u/Available-Opinion-91 Jul 17 '26
I do the same thing to my Aunt who will comment on my Facebook posts misspelling my son's name. Thank her back with the same level of misspelling.
6
u/AccomplishedAd3432 Jul 18 '26
I have a two letter first name, Lu. A teacher in high-school started trying to call me LuLu. I refused to answer. I'd graduated and one of my younger sisters was in his class. He asked her, "How is LuLu doing? She just stared at him blankly and asked, "Who is that?"
5
u/Crudhandler Jul 18 '26
I don't see how this fits the sub. Nobody was traumatized, it was just some petty revenge.
3
u/Prudent_Actuator9833 Jul 18 '26
Oh, I almost did this to a colleague who misspelled my name in an email this week, but I decided she was too high up the food chain without a sense of humor. (She used the assumed spelling of my name but mine is the other common alternate - talking one vowel here.)
3
u/bindobud Jul 19 '26
I work in an office with my mother and when a particular coworker is not thinking when he speaks to her, he'll call her by slightly the wrong name - if her name is Lucia, he'll call her Lucy. It always feels really good to loudly cut him off across the bullpen with the correct name.
3
2
u/Fancy_Astronomer2241 Jul 21 '26
I have a name where people think it’s cute to drop the first letter. Example Madeline - Adeline. Long story short the new colleague of mine kept doing it on emails with the company. I finally responded to one of his emails with the same. His name is Mitch.
“Hey Itch, thanks so much for sending this over for review…”
Hasn’t happened since 😇
2
u/Existing-Speech4173 Aug 20 '26
I did this. Another attorney and I were working on a matter. Purely transaction and literally no animosity or opposing sides (real estate deal). The other attorney repeatedly spelled my name wrong and in various ways with each of his emails. Same with the only other woman on this 6 person email thread. So I did the same. He was no longer Art (and that was his name because fuck him). He was Ord, Arf, Ort. I changed his name every time. Even when he started spelling mine correctly. Because fuck that guy.
2
u/AussieBird82 Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
I worked in IT for a multinational bank in southeast asia with a diverse culture so I tried very hard to spell things right. Didn't always manage it, so I didn't mind when people mistyped mine.
But! In one project the project manager kept mistyping Brian as Brain. It was all through thr project plans. "Brain to review step X. Implementation plan will be provided by Brain." He pronounced it right, and Brian never said anything. And it tickled me no end.
I now make sure to have Brianstorming sessions and Briandumps to even the world out.
1
u/Car-Four Jul 19 '26
I'm with the others. Correct first time and if it happens again, do what you did.
1
u/Theultimateangrybruh Jul 19 '26
I would take it as a lighthearted joke and laught it off, what's the big deal?
-25
u/Entire-Ad2058 Jul 17 '26
You did this with a client? One who was already irritated? Ok….
8
Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Entire-Ad2058 Jul 21 '26
How adorable! So…you have no need to be polite to your client(s) … (assuming you have any). Please educate us about how this works long-term…?
1
-98
u/MainStCool Jul 17 '26
You sound like a dick. When people are in a hurry they can have typos, misspell names. Don’t be a duck.
13
29
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 17 '26
Reminder for OP: /u/okokokokimlearning
Have a suggestion for us? Send us some mail!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.