Something has been really irritating me for the last few days at work. One of my colleagues (who works in a different country to me) is continuously spelling my name “Skpe” in emails. And to top it off, today he called me “Skype” on the phone.
So the reason why this irritates me is two-fold. First of all, my name is clearly “Skye”. I don’t see or hear a “P” anywhere!
Secondly (and this is why this is one of my biggest office pet peeves), I think it’s the absolute height of unprofessionalism and disrespect to spell someones name incorrectly in correspondence. Particularly when their email (which you have) and email signature (which you also have) and business card (which again, you also have) and all other instances of their name (available to you) are clearly spelled in a different way. To me, a mistake such as spelling someone’s name incorrectly shows that you don’t care about the impression you make and leave on other people – and the service driven world that I work in, this is an absolute no.
Now I concede that occasionally there are genuine mistakes. I’ve seen a colleague email another colleague using a completely different name, and I’ve had the odd email where people have genuinely made a typo because they have been in a rush (or emailing from their Blackberry). But when you have the extra 5 seconds that it takes to check your email for spelling errors, and you have a nice, clear monitor in front of you… And again I return to how unprofessional I think it is.
I will call out my team members if I see them doing this to other people, and if need be, I will lecture them because I want my team to be seen as a highly professional, service driven team.
Am I being too harsh?