Well that's easy enough

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 07/09/2014 at 16:35 • Filed to: None

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My name is Mike. My email at the job I started about a month and a half ago has my name on outgoing messages as Michael. I interact with lots of people in this job, and they keep calling me Michael because that's the name they see in their inbox. This is annoying. Not even my mom calls me Michael.

I tried changing this in Outlook, but no such luck. It's blocked. I asked the IT guy at my office what I need to do to change it to Mike. He said I need to ask the office manager lady, who has to fill out a bunch of paperwork, which she then files with corporate, and then the local IT guy can put in the work order with corporate IT, who will probably take about a week to actually make the change after the work order is put in.

Then I went to the office manager lady, who says yes, she needs to fill out the paperwork, but "HR frowns on people using shortened versions of their names on their email." Which, I mean, what? I can't have the name I actually want to be called by on my email? The guy in the next office over from me is named Ted, which I'm sure is short for something, and his email says Ted on it. Even my business cards say Mike on them. Come on, give me my Mike email!

So now I have to wait for the office manager lady to do her paperwork with corporate, hope that nobody says "well he can't use a shortened name," which if that makes it through my local IT guy will submit the request to corporate IT, then I wait for corporate IT to make the change, unless someone at that point blocks me from using a shortened name.

This all makes about as much sense as the dashboard on a 70s/80s Citroen.

UPDATE: I talked more with the office manager lady. Who's not my boss. I'm a director and she's like a fancy admin. She said that the only process she knows of is to submit some stupid carbon copy form to corporate HR to officially change my name in all things to do with the company to Mike, and she's sure that corporate HR will turn down that request since Mike isn't my legal name. I asked her if the Ted guy who works in the next office over from mine's full name is Ted and she said it's Theodore. So how did Ted get his email display name as Ted? She didn't know.

I found the corporate IT trouble ticket system and just submitted my request to change my email display name and nothing else. We'll see if that accomplishes anything.

Party-vi > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 15:52

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Hey Mike, just fix your signature line to read "Mike". Usually if I see a shorter name in the signature line I refer that person as such.

Jeff-God-of-Biscuits > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 15:53

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Well, I guess as long as you have one spoke that hangs a bit to the right, then yes, you're right.

Slave2anMG > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 15:57

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Welcome to corporate America...where asinine policies are what life so wonderful.

PatBateman > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:03

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Don't fret. I ran into the same thing a few years ago when I changed firms. My first email address was something like "pat.bateman6455@bigwallstreetfirm.com". I filled out the paperwork to lose the numbers and add my middle initial. Some random IT guy sends me a message stating "You'll need to give me a good reason to change your email address, because I probably won't do it for you". My response: "I'm in charge of prospecting millionaires for their investment accounts. I've already had two laugh out loud when I gave them my email address, and both mentioned that it wasn't professional at all. Change it now."

The next day, guess what happened?

pdx107 > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:08

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Same thing happened to a friend of mine, who was also Mike. The biggest thing for him though, is that Mike was his given name, not Michael, had to bring in a birth certificate to prove it.

Textured Soy Protein > Party-vi 07/09/2014 at 16:13

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Oh, I've had my signature as Mike from day 1. I still get tons of people calling me Michael.

Textured Soy Protein > Slave2anMG 07/09/2014 at 16:14

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Yeah, there's always something. I'm just doing this stuff long enough to save up money to open a restaurant.

Party-vi > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:14

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Hmm. No help then. Some people are just thick.

zeontestpilot > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:15

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I sort of know how you feel. I go by Josh, not Joshua. Joshua sounds like a goody-two-shoe name, and is only used when I'm in trouble by my wife or mother [read: more times than I'd like to admit].

At my work, I was forced to change my email. I was suppose to sign up with the company's social network, but I was unable to because of a guy in another state with the same and first last name. But this isn't my first rodeo with this kind of thing, so I changed my email to josh, my middle initial, and the first 4 letters of my last name. So now, when I'm messaged via sametime, I have to always ask "do you have the right Josh?"

The real kicker is that my parents went out of their way to name me an uncommon name. at the time. Apparently, all the other parents in the world thought the same thing. That's why I went out of my way to make sure it doesn't happen to my own daughter, :).

Racescort666 > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:25

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"I told those fudge packers I like Michael Bolton's music."

Seriously though, that blows. What's your manager say about it?

Textured Soy Protein > PatBateman 07/09/2014 at 16:43

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I don't even want my email address changed, just the display name. Outlook normally lets you change this, but of course here that setting is blocked and controlled by corporate instead.

Textured Soy Protein > zeontestpilot 07/09/2014 at 16:43

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I can't even imagine what would be needed to change the email address. I'm only trying to have them change my email display name.

Textured Soy Protein > Racescort666 07/09/2014 at 16:44

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My boss is traveling all this week so I can't get an official word on it. But in the meantime only person who can help out is this office manager lady who I outrank.

jariten1781 > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:46

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I have a coworker whose legal name is 'Tommy'. Not Thomas, not Tom...Tommy. I was in the room when a new Division Director told him that he needs to go by his real name either Tom or Thomas because no client would take a Senior Engineer seriously with a child's pet name.

PatBateman > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:51

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That's all? PSH. Should be an easy fix.

zeontestpilot > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:51

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The email address was easy to change at my company, a couple of clicks and its done. But everything else complained on my computer. The social network has to be re-logged in, then the sametime, the email, and some other things I can't remember at the moment. It took me a while to realize that my sametime login name was my off of my first email, and not my new one, which was why no one could find me, lol.

We have to change our passwords every 3 months, and there is no master password. There are different systems of passwords, you change it once, and then it works for everything connected to it. I'm in the middle of changing all of my passwords. The only one left is my VPN password, I'm just waiting for the email to change it. Otherwise, I'll locked out, lol.

Nibbles > zeontestpilot 07/09/2014 at 16:55

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My wife's mother has a very uncommon name. When my wife was named, they made sure she had a more common name in order to be, well, more common. Turns out they weren't the only ones with the same idea. Not only are there three women in her family with the same first, middle and last name, but she went to school with a girl that had the same first, middle, last name - completely unrelated. Turns out there are something like 6,000 with the same first, middle and last name in this country.

So we've chosen some more "uncommon" names for our possible future spawn. Me? I have a common name, uncommonly spelled. I've seen "Zac", "Zak", "Zach", "Josh" and I swear at least one person has typed out "Zaq". Few people actually put "Zack".

Cé hé sin > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 16:58

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Be all that as it may, I'm looking at that dash. Citroën GSA?

Textured Soy Protein > Cé hé sin 07/09/2014 at 17:06

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I believe so, I google image searched for Citroen dashboard and that was a particularly fun looking one.

Textured Soy Protein > PatBateman 07/09/2014 at 17:07

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You would think so, but that's apparently not the way things work around here.

davedave1111 > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 17:09

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Oh dear, and I was going to suggest just changing the display name. One way to deal with silly systems like this is to raise a ticket for it as a problem - for example 'incorrect email address preventing employee carrying out employee-relations tasks' or some such gobbledygook. Problems ought to be treated differently from 'change requests'. The other is just to drop a heavy weight on them from above and tell them to stop buggering around.

Textured Soy Protein > davedave1111 07/09/2014 at 17:12

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I put in a ticket with corporate IT. We'll see if anything happens. I'm not holding my breath.

davedave1111 > jariten1781 07/09/2014 at 17:13

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That's awesome. I once worked with someone called, oh, for anonymity let's call him George Michael. We were all expected to give people our last names. Of course more than once bosses overhead him telling people he was called Michael...

thebigbossyboss > Nibbles 07/09/2014 at 17:13

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I have an extremely unusual last name. There are about 30 or so people with my surname in the entire country. It's sometimes neat because on a plane once I realized the flight attendant was my dad's cousin haha.

davedave1111 > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 17:15

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I got that bit, that's why I said to make sure it's down as an error that stops you doing your work, rather than just a request to change your email display name. I've worked in the IT departments of places that had ridiculous systems like that, and it's normally a simple way to get what you want.

thebigbossyboss > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 17:15

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That sucks. My physio calls me William as do my subordinate interns. I should tell my interns to call me will. Even my fiancee calls me will haha

zeontestpilot > Nibbles 07/09/2014 at 17:16

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I've actually met a Joshuwa (technically, that's how it's pronounced). I've also met a Jeshua, which is plain awesome (same root word in Hebrew).

Back when MySpace was big, I discovered someone with my name in Texas. Later, when checking a speeding ticket in FL, I discovered another guy who was popular with the law enforcement down there. Now in MI, I discovered that one guy in the same company, and one who apparently lives in the sane town as me, lol. My last name isn't smith, but it sure feels like it, lol.

Textured Soy Protein > davedave1111 07/09/2014 at 17:18

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Ah, see I didn't reach that far, I only tagged the ticket as a change request.

davedave1111 > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 17:30

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Yeah, it's one of the things stupid IT departments do. To anyone normal, you're requesting to change something, so it's a change request. To them, a change request is - well, mainly it seems like an excuse not to do any work. But seriously, change requests tend to be things that don't matter, and go to the bottom of every list if they're even within policy.

Garrett Davis > Textured Soy Protein 07/09/2014 at 18:58

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The company I work for was recently bought out by a major corporation and as part of the integration, some of our log in names needed to be changed if they were already taken. I'm sure someone snagged gdavis very early on, so of course mine was changed. I expected something simple like maybe "gadavis" or something. What did I end up with?

"arredav"

Really? The middle portion of my first name and the first three of my last. Sure, that seems like the most logical conclusion. Luckily this is just a personal log in, and not something anyone else ever sees. I have a coworker named Guillermo Ramirez and his was changed to something like "uilleram." Gibberish.

Garrett Davis > Nibbles 07/09/2014 at 19:02

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Really? "Zack" isn't the most common spelling? I usually assume either "Zack" or "Zach."

Almost nobody spells my name right. It's usually "Garret," which is perfectly understandable, but I get some weird ones like "Garit" and "Gerret" sometimes. If I'm telling someone my name, many people just assume it's Gary, thought that could be my fault.