I particularly feel this with regard to first names. I hate it when people I don't know use my first name.
Yes, yes! I feel the same way. I especially hate it on phone calls. You can't even see my face! Don't use my first name!
In terms of nicknames, one of my old coworkers used to call me "Kris." This was not a coworker I knew well or even particularly liked, and Kris is a nickname that has generally only come from my closest friends (I love it if it comes from them, but it feels really intrusive coming from someone I don't know as well). She made me twitch every time she said it, which is sad since I know it wasn't her intent.
After that? It's anything we come up with on a drunken weekend. Ask Chicken.
I read this fast and thought you were saying that someone's nickname was "Ass Chicken." This makes me giggle because I'm 12.
Side note: ita, I feel like I barely saw you (or anyone, for that matter) at the party. I know it's difficult for you to make plans with your headaches, but if you ever have free time on a weekend and would like coffee, I'd love to sit down and really chat. Burrell, same goes for you. It was so great of you both to come.
Also, I just got the final pictures from our photographer friend who was at the party, and there are a few more cute Buffista shots. I'll put them up on Flickr in a bit.
She made me twitch every time she said it, which is sad since I know it wasn't her intent.
might not have been her intent, but if she couldn't see you twitch, she was just oblivious. That's what we like to call willful blindness.
I read this fast and thought you were saying that someone's nickname was "Ass Chicken." This makes me giggle because I'm 12.
Poor HN, because it may be now! Not really...well maybe...
I don't mind first name usage in anything but a cold call. My friends' children call me Miss DJ and family members' children call me Auntie DJ, regardless of actual relation.
Any of you are welcome to call me by my first name, or DJ or Daisy or whathaveyou, though in mixed company people will be confused. They have a completely different set of nicknames for me.
Also? I cannot stand it when people add the y to my husband's name. I hate it worse than when they misspell it with an h. It's overly familiar is what it is, and I will cut you.
Okay, first, Steph, your name has two syllables: Steffle. It`s like amych/amyth in that it has by now become irreversible in my subvocal reading. And secondly, we`re weird in that we are in a field where all our coworkers go by Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. but we don`t. It`s deliberate; we`re setting ourselves up as adult non-authority figures. But it does make it sound odd when all the other teachers are formally addressed and we`re talked to as if the kids were kicking it with their buddies.
I have the same problem, only inverted. I introduce myself as Steph -- simple, one syllable -- and invariably the person will reply, "StephANIE?"
I bet I would do that. Mostly because I would want to spell your name out in my head in some weird way as if asking the longer name would give me a clue. Ridic.
My f2f name, Heather, doesn't lend itself to random shortening or nicknaming. My bff calls me "Heathen" now and again, or "H-girl" but by and large it's "Heather" in first name situations and Ms. Lastname in others. My job has a very first-name culture, from the CEO on down. I'm happy to go with either first names or Title Lastname, as long as a) I know the rules and b) I'm included in them.
I'm starting to get ma'am-ed in grocery stores around here (US, southeast). It started about the same time the clerks stopped carding me for booze. Eh, I'm 42, and getting ma'am-ed is appropriate for me in the local culture.
I am Calli, mostly. I get shortened to initials or H1. (HN will sometimes get H1N1 lately). Heathz is popular with a few, as well as Mrs. Glenlevet.
I've been ma'amed since I was in my 20s. I hate it. I've never called anyone ma'am, but I haven't worked in the service industry for 20 years.
The first time I was called ma'am was when I was 18, by a guy about the same age, at freshman orientation. It was weird.
