Customer Service Rant

[lindaj]

Dear Customer Service People,

My last name is, in fact, my last name. After you ask me for it, please don't write it down and then say "...and now your last name?" or worse yet, get all huffy and snarl, "No, your last name!" Worst of all, please do not ask me if I'm sure. Yes, I am sure. It has been my last name for a good long time now, and I am quite familiar with it.

Thank you. That is all.

Comments

[blaisepascal]

It's much more common as a first name than it is as a last name.

[blaisepascal]

I suppose it's stuff like that which has lead me to, by default, give my name over the phone as "My name is Blaise Pascal, last name P-A-S-C-A-L, first name B-L-A-I-S-E." Using my birth name, of course, and spelled slowly.

As for my nom-de-net, I'm amazed at the number of supposedly educated people who act as if they've never heard of the original Blaise Pascal.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

In fact, please don't bother asking for my last name at all, because I know once you write it down you'll never be able to find me again. Save yourself the step in the middle.

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

I didn't change my last name when I married A. After 2 other marriages (and subsequent name changes -- and changes back after the divorce) I didn't want to deal).

When I was setting up the new telephone account before moving down here, the tender sweet young thing taking the information said, "Oh! You and your husband don't have the same last name!"

My reply: "Oh, duh."

[glenmarshall.livejournal.com]

It's too tempting to use an Indian name like Srinivasan Sridharan ("Sri" for short), Ramaswamy Chandramouli ("Mouli"), or Krishnarao Govindarajan ("Krishna") -- all current or former colleagues of mine.

Or maybe some sort of Polish name with lots of Cs, Zs, and Ws and not enough vowels. (Mieczyslawa Szczepkowski)

Or maybe Welsh of Irish, where the pronunciation is nothing like the spelling. (I live on Gwilym Circle, pronounced "William".)

Or Chinese. Insist it be spelled in proper Pinyin.

My all-time favorite is a person in Georgia who got his name changed to "*****", pronounced "Five Star".

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

Me: "tait, T-A-I-T"
They write down "Tate."
Me: "no, T-A-I-T"
They write down "Taite"

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I get a version of that, too. Everyone wants my last name to have an A in it rather than an E.

This is why I like Canada...they don't do that there. :-)

[totient]

If I think someone is going to be typing in my last name, then it's pronounced "samuelhenryedwardcharlesthomasmaryandrewnancy".

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

Not long ago, I had the need to read a UPS tracking number to a customer service rep at (you guessed it) UPS. There were some letters involved. Being a good little ham radio operator, I used appropriate replacements for the letters, one of which was "echo." After multiple attempts in which the rep couldn't find my package, he asked, "Echo...that's X, right?"

[gorgo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, B and I go though the same sort of thing with her first name all the time. Some people are just incapable of understanding that there's no U in it.

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

I hate to sound all zenophobic but it's even worse if the person on the other end of the line speaks broken English.

[mama-pipa.livejournal.com]

I have a regular client who only has a first name, having grown up in an orphanage during the WWII years. This throws off our new brokers all the time.