Friday, January 20, 2012

How many air miles do I have, again?

So, we all know that my name is Christense, but I also sometimes go by Lucy because it is easier for people to remember and pronounce.  Upon learning that I had two names, my new manager said:


Manager: So we can call you Lucy-Christense.
Me: No.  You can't.
Manager: Why not?
Me: It's not a name.  No one would ever be called that in English.
Manager: But it's cute!
Me: (ignoring the inappropriateness of the "cute" comment)  It's not, it's ridiculous.  Please don't use that name to refer to me.
Manager: But...
Me: Really.  I don't like it.



A month later, upon learning that I didn't have a corporate email address:


Manager:  So, we'll get you one.  You can be lucychristense@domainname.com
Me: No, no I can't.
Manager: Of course you can!  It's surely not taken by anyone else.
Me; First of all, I asked you not to use that name for me.  Second of all, since all the other email addresses are Chinese names, then christense@domainname.com and lucy@domainname.com are probably not in use by anyone else, either.
Manager: Yeah, well, we'll get you an email address.



And then today:


Manager's assistant: Our manager got your email address done.  It's lucychristense@domainname.com.
Me: But I specifically said I didn't want that email address.
Manager's assistant: You did?
Me: Yes.
Manager's assistant: Did you tell our manger?
Me: Yes, I did.  You were standing right there.
Manager's assistant: Well, this is your email address.
Me: I'm not going to use that.
Manager's assistant: But our manager wants everyone to use a corporate email address.
Me: Then this one needs to be changed.  That's not my name.


Note: This wasn't name censoring, Assistant really does always refer to him as Our Manager, not by his name.  All this shuffle occurred after Our Manager came to the department, introduced himself using an English name, then suddenly asked everyone to stop using it (because he looked it up and realized it wasn't a name).  Now he insists on being referred to only by his Chinese name, )which is fine).  He also insists that I learn all employees' Chinese names and only use Chinese names when I talk to him about employees...no English names allowed, he says it's too much trouble for him to learn them (whatever, also fine).  But apparently he also wants a similar degree of control over what I call myself.  Oh well.  I can out-stubborn any Chinese man...just ask poor Peter!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have clearly become comfortable in your cross culture. Stubbornness is a trait we use only when we know we won't insult another, or learn that insulting another is ok -- it's not important. I always know when kids move to this place. You go girl! ~ Linda

Christense Andersen Jiang said...

Update: The final address issued to me was issued to me about a week ago, as christense@abc.com