Am i wrong ? Or are these people ignorant

[candymancan]

Ok so i have a unique first name. Its Hyphenated. And all my life people have called me one or the other but not the full name like i prefer. Its very simple.

Two of the most common male names just hyphenated. Jon-Erik. Im ok with Jon but Erik is a no.

But for some reason people all my life havent been able to grasp this. So i let it go. But at work with people ive known for 7 months now. My boss keeps calling me Jon Paul. Or Erik. Both of which are not correct.

And im getting iritated by this. Ive corrected him and other multiple times now. To just call me Jon if you cant get it right.

Am i wrong to finally get sick of this ? Im really getting iritated its NOT that difficult. And im starting to wonder if these people are just absolutetly brain dead. Lol. To me it feels disrespectful if you cant even get Jon right after 7 months

I want your opinions. I dont think im being unreasonable

[tgreese]

Likely it's a game, sort of a low-brow practical joke. They know it bothers you, so they keep it up. You're right, it is disrespectful, but IME they only do it to get a reaction. It's your dignity not theirs; laugh if you can.

It's also possible that your boss actually can't remember names. Bush 43 used to give everybody he met a nickname. Some found this insulting, but I believe it was his way of creating a mental association with their name that helped him remember them and their interests. This is an important skill for a politician, the so-called 'retail' politics. Possible you could give your boss a nickname, and tell him about this method. This might help him better to remember the names of his employees and customers - helpful! Embrace and amplify.

[tgreese]

You might also make a point to remember and use the proper first name of every person that misnames you. Like "I understand what you want here, Bob. However, I have a question, Bob. How do we handle the remaining orders that come in after the deadline, Bob?" And so forth. Maybe not in every sentence, but often. This would be the Christian doctrinaire response. Not being religious here, but it's a tactic. "Turn the other cheek." It's a form of embrace and amplify, from another perspective. A different high-road response.

[Harry Dawg]

Don't let em' get to you. At my work we have all sorts of chop-busting nick names.

There's one guy we call "Snowflake", or "Jake the Snake".
Joe got coined "Jocephous" . There was "Commander Corey", but he left. I get called Harry even though my name is Harrison. Or they will call me Herrington. One night I was partying it up with my boss and he called me "Erik Carrot-Skin" for the whole night. Stuck like glue and folks still call me that. One guy even asked to change his nickname (similar to your situation) and we wouldn't allow it. You don't get to pick your nickname.

Anyways, I bring this up to show that it might just be workplace banter.

Sometimes work can be stressful, complicated or just down right boring and it's fun to have some comic relief or just screw around with the guys.

Find a nickname for the guys that are raggin' on you and stick it to them lol.

[lindel]

Having grown up with the name Lindel, I can sympathize somewhat. I'm used to the mispronunciation, and while it can be irritating, it's more often the spelling issues that frustrate me. People tend to just put two "l"s on the back of it, without bothering to ask the proper spelling.

[MReese Wagoneer]

I make it a point to ask and do my level headed best

like Tim said, the more it bothers you the more he will continue.

could you use his name incorrectly?? childish but effective

lately bosses are like water I am going on my 4th boss in a year, is there hope ?

[sonic4014]

Just banter, no one really ever matures past high school... Give them all nicknames and have fun with it.

[will e]

Years ago I received a polite email at work that read, in part, "Please do not refer to me as Chris, my name is Christopher and I do not acknowledge nicknames". The last part may have read 'accept' or perhaps it was 'allow' but you all get the gist. There was also something in the email about 'assigned to me'. Anyways, he had a hangup on his name.

But it gets funny. Christopher wasn't even his given name. It was his father's name. And I laughed to myself because he often referred to me as 'Mikey'. Perhaps it was his way of making me notice? I never paid attention to if he stopped calling me Mikey after the email.

My FSJ friends who hang with me and camp with me know I don't care. Maybe it's just old age. When folks ask "Is it Mike or Michael" I tell them I don't care what they call me, just don't call me late for dinner.

However, at work back in the 90's we had a young lady from India. Her name was very hard to pronounce correctly. I worked very hard to get her pronunciation correct. This made her happy.

More recently a young man from China was unfortunate enough to get a cube assigned to him on his first day of work that was just outside of my office. He didn't work for me. He was a fresh out from college, an engineer and this was his first corporate gig. After about a week or so I noticed everyone called him 'Schwinn' like the bicycle or 'shoon'. I thought it was odd that his name sounded like a bicycle but it turns out his name was pronounced more like 'Choon'. Although with less oo. Anyways, I took it upon myself to learn to pronounce his name correctly and after about a month or so I had most of the office pronouncing it correctly as well.

Jon-Erik, I wouldn't worry about it. You're probably going to move on to another job eventually and start the process all over again.

[SJTD]

Idunno. I think he should have left it at please call me Christopher without the threat.

[will e]

I don't think it was meant as a threat. We got along fine and he wasn't the type to threaten folks. I just thought it was funny.

[SJTD]

Ok, not so much threat as warning, promise not to acknowledge, whatever is what I meant. Seems to me it's a self esteem thing.

But a guy's not respecting another's wishes when addressing him says more about the speaker's maturity.