The name game

Something that really annoys me is when I answer the phone by saying my full name, and the person who has called me struggles to pronounce my name, or asks

"Is XXXXX there?"

YES you dolt, I am here. I answered the phone. I answered the phone with my name. With my full name, pronounced correctly.

I also get emails responding to mine where the respondent has assumed my name is a man's name, and not bothered to read either my sign-off or the email address or the signature underneath the email.

Sometimes they do this several times.

But the most annoying is when someone I have known for 15 years HANDWRITES a card to me and gets my name wrong. Not the spelling - that is forgivable - but the actual name. Calling me by a man's name instead of my name.

I'm simply going to delete every single email without reading it, and put the phone down on every single person not getting the name right in future until they learn. They're trying to sell me their services, their ideas, their people. I don't have to sell them anything. They're the ones wanting to "reach out to me".

By the way - ugh - 'reach out'. What an appalling phrase, conjured up by illiterate and uneducated jargon-munchers. I do actually delete everything that comes with people offering to reach out to me. Reach out to me and I'll rip your flagging arm off.

Lord Sugar wouldn't stand for it. Why should I?

Lessons:

Learn your audience
Spell-check before you send