People inexplicably have the hardest time spelling my name.

[conuly]

You'd think "Connie" wouldn't be so hard, but if I go to a fast food place and they ask my name, it comes out Coney, every time. (Not that I like giving my name in the first place. What was so bad about numbers?) I've taken to saying "Supergirl", because at least people can spell it.

Yesterday I went, and after I was sitting down I glanced at the screen and saw that the young woman behind me, with the toddler, was Agnieszka. I'm not sure how she managed to get the correct spelling, but good job.

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Comments

[alexseanchai]

maybe the barista'd just read Novik's Uprooted?

[conuly]

That did occur to me. The name is still unfamiliar enough that I had to google to confirm the spelling.

[affreca]

I'm not sure how so many people hear Helen when I say Kelly. Am I that bad at saying my name?

[nodrog]

‘K’ and ‘H’ are surprisingly similar phonemes.  Plus, “Helen” is a female name, while “Kelly” is a surname, a family name.  So they’re hearing “Helé” and filling in the rest automatically.  (Speaking of ‘Helen,’ if you gave your name as ‘Keller’ you’d have no problem beyond an odd look now and then.)

[conuly]

People don't listen. And honestly, other than the initial sound, Helen and Kelly *do* sound an awful lot alike.

[nodrog]

She may be a regular, and they’ve learned.

I say, “Bob.”

[I remember a while back when I ordered something at, I dunno, a fast food place, and they casually ended the process with, “And your name?”

“A Republic, if you can keep it” - I don’t use the term ‘sheeple,’ but I see why it exists:  I have watched Americans meekly obeying orders and divulging personal information on demand that POWs are taught not to provide to their captors!  Compliance is taken for granted - but not by me.  I stared at her.  “Why?”

She was actually thrown off balance by this.  “Uh… So, uhm, so we can call you when your order’s ready.”

“… Bob.”  And [bleep] you, I did not add.]

Updated to add:

The discount / bonus / scooby-snack card issued by your local grocery chain store exists for one reason:  Data mining.  This is why the cashier has one on hand to use if you fail to provide one:  She’s not being nice.  Rather, the Home Office wants to know how many of what were sold at that store.  The Wal-Mart Associate discount card is the same, but with the addition of by whom.  And the computer watchdogs do not sleep:  If an associate is buying alcohol daily, an email is sent to the store manager about a potential alcohol/drug problem.  Likewise cigarettes - the Stop Smoking program will be brought pointedly to the associate’s attention.

It’s all about data.  Protect yours!

[conuly]

I thought of the first, but this Wendy's hasn't been open all that long, in fact. They'd have to have learned fast!

This is why the cashier has one on hand to use if you fail to provide one: She’s not being nice. Rather, the Home Office wants to know how many of what were sold at that store.

Home Office already has that data, though, through the registers themselves.

[nodrog]

You’d think, and doubtless they do - but I’m not making this up.  This is why that whole barcoded customer-carried transaction card business started:  Sales data.  It probably identifies the individual customer also - I don’t know, I don’t carry or use any such.  (Tinfoil-beanie time?  No, I just don’t like being tracked.)

“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.”

The Prisoner (1967)

[conuly]

I'm certain it does identify the individual customer - that's why they use them. If they only wanted to know what stores sell when, they'd save themselves the trouble and use the register data.

If you don't want to be tracked, you might try convincing your area to switch to the delightful system described in The Killer's Cousin - every time the protagonist goes to the store, another customer in line asks to swap cards with him. Once the cashier does it for him, without asking or missing a beat. Apparently the whole town is in on this scheme to foil the trackers and data miners, reasoning that if you use a different somebody else's card every time, there's so much noise that the store can't learn a damn thing.

[mtbc]

Do they really not correlate it through payment card numbers anyway? Maybe PCI-DSS forbids even retaining a hash of them for that purpose, I don't know. I was bothered when one of the cafeterias at work became no-cash.

[bibliofile]

In the US, there may be rules about not tracking individual customers' long-term shopping habits via payment information. That's why many stores offer their own credit cards and customer loyalty programs.

[nodrog]

That is correct:  Here in the Land of the Free® the Department of Homeland Security may subpoena your bank records without warrant or shown cause, but Biggie-Mart can’t.  That’s why they have to set up their own sales-tracking systems.

[peristaltor]

Er, I'm going to need a source for that. I have simply too many "coincidences" where purchases were made and very similar ads subsequently popped up to discount the possibility.

Could it be the card masters work as go-betweens between seller and bank? Dunno, but something is up tracking-wise.

[conuly]

They can only do that if you use your credit/debit card, though.

re: The Killer's Cousin system

[bibliofile]

OK, now I want to start swapping cards with other customers in line. If only the grocery cards didn't offer discounts on gasoline! I'm carless so that part doesn't matter to me, but it might to other people.

[hudebnik]

I've always assumed the main purpose of those cards was to identify *which customer* bought what, for advertising purposes. Ever since bar codes, the main office has already known how much of what product was sold at which store at what times of what days of the week. And possibly which things were sold in the same purchase, which could be used for cross-marketing even if you don't know *who* bought them.

Although vendor-specific "loyalty cards" or "frequent shopper cards" pre-date the "big data" era: originally they were about converting a moderate-margin customer who shops at either your store or one of several competitors depending on convenience into a slightly-lower-margin customer who shops *mostly* at your store, and (if you play your cards right) even comes to identify with your store. I think David Friedman discusses this in Hidden Order. There are some old-fashioned merchants who still use them this way: you get a stamp or a punch every time you buy something, and after ten stamps you get a free one, with never a unique customer ID in sight.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I wonder if this is why people cant their head like the RCA dog when all my stories have Bob as a name because English requires naming a person but it's a detail not required for the story.

Oddly, stores are very bad at distinguishing the specifics of their sales? Too little clout with suppliers to change the mix of items (flavor of ice cream, size of particular shirt)

Note:Bob used to be about as common as John James Harry Dick Tom. Every name in common use had a pallet of nicknames because that's what you do if a small cadre of names are doing most of the lifting.

Consider the umbrage of a Peggy calling in and being told that's not her name just because Margaret is her paperwork spelling. ;)

[dark_phoenix54]

My friend's name is Colin. You can guess what it turns out spelled like.

[conuly]

Could be worse.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Imagine needing to explain that Jesus isn't always Sunday School pronunciation.

[nodrog]

Or even accurate - it’s been Hellenized.  “Joshua” is the real name, almost.

[mtbc]

The UK citizenship test's ridiculous, almost entirely focused on things that matter to hardly anyone, including those who've always lived here. It's just embarrassing. Especially daft is how it wants one to know exact numbers instead of just broadly correct distinction-without-a-difference.

Back when I did the US one they had the weird combination of an excellent study guide and a trivial test that barely needed any of what was actually worth knowing from the guide. They since changed the guide.

[cosmolinguist]

A friend who took the UK test even earlier than I did (mid-00s) said she found her study guide so full of useful information she actually hung on to it. Of course the test became a lot less useful once Theresa May got her hands on it, 2012 I think that was.

[cosmolinguist]

I had to take the UK not-a-citizenship test (it doesn't get you citizenship, which is optional; it turns a visa into residency and is mandatory) and I have Thoughts about it. I see I've been campaigning to get rid of it since 2012. (And I gave a speech about it in 2015.)

[rhoda_rants]

People constantly get both by real name, AND my online handle wrong, but throwing an unnecessary "n" into it. I have no idea why. However, if someone at a food place asks my name, I've just gotten into the habit of immediately spelling it. Which *usually* helps. (Usually.)

ETA: Additionally, I'd guess that 'Agnieszka' also is in the habit of spelling her name. And I mean, you have no idea if they got that right. She might be staring at the screen going, "Ugh, again?" for all you know. ;)

That said, I don't know why anyone would hear your name and spell it like that.

[cellio]

Coney? Really? Maybe you should tell them your last name is "Island" -- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

[conuly]

When I bring it up pre-emptively, people inevitably express surprise that anybody could possibly make that mistake - but if I don't, then they make the mistake.

[peristaltor]

I am shocked at how many misspell my wife's Janice with the deliberately-misspelled Ms. Joplin's name. Including my friend… who… did the caligraphy… on… our… wedding license.

A handwave of contempt at hippies.

[archersangel]

(Not that I like giving my name in the first place. What was so bad about numbers?)

i too prefer the numbers.