Saturday, February 28, 2009
What's My Name?
How good are you at remembering names? Do you instantly connect a name with a face, or do you have to think really hard just to come up with the first letter? A lot of people apparently have trouble with this... or maybe it's just MY name that's hard to remember (/I'm forgettable). Here are just some of the things that happened to me (all on the same day) that leads me to believe so:
- At lunch, someone sat down at the same table where I was sitting and asked, "Sorry, but who ARE you?" even though I told him last week when he asked the same question. I don't think he has short term memory loss, so I guess I must be a forgettable person.
- At work, a kid came up to me and said, "Hey Natalie, I'm done my classwork." (I work at Kumon and I have to mark their classwork.) Natalie?! That's not even CLOSE to my name, and that boy has been coming to Kumon for at least two months.
- Again, at work, I got called "Georgina" (which is I guess closer to my name than Natalie...) by my boss. It's one thing to be called by another name by a student, but it's an entirely different situation when the woman who gives me my pay cheques gets my name wrong. *Crawls back under rock*
So, how often do people mess up YOUR name?
1. people don't forget they just can't say it no matter how hard they try.
2. people (substitute teachers) say my name wrong and remember that name forever no matter how many times they are corrected.
3. members of my family say the wrong name when trying to address me ie. mom, toby, gill etc. (yeah i said toby it happened.)
also tell me later who it was that forgot you at lunch, lol natalie. Though the ways of remembering your name if people have trouble with it kinda suck
a) the meanest of the mean girls
b) the capital of a canadian province (which means they'll say it wrong)
so good luck with that, it sure is good i have so many nicknames for you, cause if i ever forget i have so many other options. (not that i ever forget.)
I have a bad memory for names. I try repeating names to myself a number of times each to try to retain them in my memory and even then I mix people up. :P
When someone gets it wrong, it's pretty much always someone who has difficulty with other names, too.
I've never had any problems with that myself - Amanda's sufficiently common enough to be memorable.
"What's your first name, Katy?"
"Katy..."
"I mean what does the school know you by?"
"Katy."
"Just Katy?"
"Yes, just Katy."
"Not short for Katherine?"
"No, just Katy."
But people mess up my surname all the time, because it's Portuguese and very hard to spell and pronounce. ;) I loved it when a new teacher would go through the register calling out first names and surnames and would mysteriously ditch the calling out of surnames once they reached mine, in order to avoid mispronouncing it.
E-R-E-I-R-A. ee rare ah.
And I used to work at Kumon too (marking homework ;)
Hmm... there have been a few instances I suppose, of people messing up my name. And of course, there was this one teacher who called everyone by the wrong name. So... not that often, but it does happen ;)
Don't worry about it too much, i twas probably just an off day.
"Yes, just Katy."
"Not short for Katherine?"
"No, just Katy."
I get the same exact thing, except mine is spelled Katie. Apparently all Katie's MUST have a longer name /rolls eyes