My name is ‘bethanye’. Three syllables — beth-uh-nee. My name is NOT ‘Beth’. I know a lot of ‘Beth’s’ — some of my best friends are ‘Beth’s’ (ha-ha). But it’s NOT my name! Anyone who actually knows me knows that. Either call me ‘bethanye’ or ‘b’, but not ‘Beth’.
I’ve noticed that most of the people that start calling me ‘Beth’ are people that I don’t like anyway. Over time, I’ve learned to use it as an indicator — if someone calls me ‘Beth’ once, I’ll correct them. Sure, they may be trying to get too informal with me, but they might also have just forgotten my name. But if they keep doing it, then they’re probably asshats.
Now that I’ve opened up that pet peeve for the entire world — well, at least this board — I guess I’m asking for it. WTF… I just had to get that out of my system. Got an email from someone who had an intern offer from us last year and turned it down. He wants another crack at the internship… and he started the email calling me ‘Beth’. Now I have to be extra sure that when I tell him no-go-kiddo that it’s because we really don’t need the help, and not because he irritated me.
Oh, well, back to work…