The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[robgul]

I added gender identifier/pronoun preference when - as a global company - I received a mail from someone from a different culture that I wouldn't have been able to guess, and thought, yeah that doesn't hurt.

Absolutely agree - I used to work for a large global IT company in that situation.

[Kim]

Just "Customer Services" would be fine, no need for a name, or even a title - just the answer to my question would be adequate

I think it's harmless and occasionally useful to know who you're talking to when you get a response from a generic account like that.  Especially if you're then going to follow-up in another media that wouldn't preserve the threading (eg. a voice call or by sending them a parcel).  Depends on how advanced their case management is, really.  If everything gets filtered through some customer database it's redundant.  If it's a small business it's often useful to be able to tell them that all the context is in Dave's head, and it'll probably be quicker to go and get him.

I expect there's also Marketing wisdom that tells us that people are more receptive when they imagine they're talking to an actual human, even when it's a bot...   

- at least I wasn't "reached out to" asked if "are you well" or wished "a nice day/pleasant evening" 

The "hope this finds you well" thing seems to have sprung up in response to the COVID-19.  Fair enough, I suppose.  But it does seem a little strange.

[robgul]

Just "Customer Services" would be fine, no need for a name, or even a title - just the answer to my question would be adequate

I think it's harmless and occasionally useful to know who you're talking to when you get a response from a generic account like that.  Especially if you're then going to follow-up in another media that wouldn't preserve the threading (eg. a voice call or by sending them a parcel).  Depends on how advanced their case management is, really.  If everything gets filtered through some customer database it's redundant.  If it's a small business it's often useful to be able to tell them that all the context is in Dave's head, and it'll probably be quicker to go and get him.

I expect there's also Marketing wisdom that tells us that people are more receptive when they imagine they're talking to an actual human, even when it's a bot...   

- at least I wasn't "reached out to" asked if "are you well" or wished "a nice day/pleasant evening" 

Agreed - but the message in question was just an automated "boilerplate text" response.

The "hope this finds you well" thing seems to have sprung up in response to the COVID-19.  Fair enough, I suppose.  But it does seem a little strange.

[ravenbait]

The "hope this finds you well" thing seems to have sprung up in response to the COVID-19.  Fair enough, I suppose.  But it does seem a little strange.

I've used "I trust this finds you well," as an opening statement in hand-written letters for years. I think I picked it up from examples of fictional epistles in late Victorian literature. I prefer this to "How are you?" because it provides an opening for someone to share otherwise if that's the case and they want, while allowing them to leave me to the stated assumption if they prefer.

Sam (my current grumble is that I don't even have the energy to grumble)

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Think Andrea is an Italian mans name but would be read as female in the UK."

I know an Italian man called Andrea, here in the UK. I also have a work email contact called Andreea – not a typo, double e – who is Romanian, or at least based in Cluj-Napoca. I'm guessing this Andreea is female, but maybe not – so far it hasn't mattered and it's unlikely to. Curiously, this Andreea works for an organisation with bases in London, Singapore and Chicago, in addition to Romania; the first two offices have started appending pronouns to all their emails but Chicago and Romania don't.

[Tim Hall]

I emailed an Italian Geezer* called Andrea just last week.
I also know of another Italian Geezer in the UK called Nicola. He shortens it to Nico, but I'm not sure whether this is to avoid confusion or just what the short form is.

* I don't think he painted the Mona Lisa either.

[Cudzoziemiec]

And there was Nikola Tesla of course.

[Beardy]

Putting pronouns on emails would have helped a lot in identifying gender when I was at work becuase it was often unclear from the name alone when you got an email from India. That said, it was rarely that important for me to know the gender of any of the individuals I was working with, at least from a professional pov, so it wouldn’t have changed to working relationship.

[Mr Larrington]

I also know an Italian bloke yclept Andrea, specifically the one TV's Gary Solomon kept calling “Andreas”.

[orienteer]

About ten years ago I did Bikeability training at schools in NW  London, where there are many immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. Inevitably the attendance list had names I couldn't identify gender from. It got more difficult when I looked at them and still couldn't tell. These were mostly kids in Year 6, about 11 years old.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Being Indian wouldn't necessarily have helped. For instance, Krishna is a male god but the name is often given to girls too.

[Pingu]

I also know an Italian bloke yclept Andrea, specifically the one TV's Gary Solomon kept calling “Andreas”.

You can fault him for that.

[bhoot]

"Think Andrea is an Italian mans name but would be read as female in the UK."

A colleague called Simone (Italian man) caught out a few people. And then there are the names written same as English but prononced differently - notable Nicolas in French pronounced as Nicola in English. A while back I was working with a team including a Johann (man) but the Spanish people we dealt with liked to pronounce it Joanne.
I now work with a lot of people from India and getting to grips with gender and pronouns is a bit tricky as they are all new names to me.

[ian]

I honestly didn't much care about the sex of my Indian teams, it would either become apparent or not, and it didn't much matter. None of them felt the need to share their pronouns.

One of the lead developers did call me Lan, though, I guess once she'd made the mistake, she decided to run with it, and then it was too late to correct her since we'd both then have to admit it. I think by the end, in any meeting she was in, I referred to myself as Lan. It was just easier.

[Basil]

Many Indian names are not gender specific.
For a while I had two colleagues of different gender, but with the same name.
Because it was many years ago, but mainly because I've had a pint [2 Ed], I can't remember what that name was.
*deep?  *jit?

[Kim]

One of the lead developers did call me Lan, though, I guess once she'd made the mistake, she decided to run with it, and then it was too late to correct her since we'd both then have to admit it. I think by the end, in any meeting she was in, I referred to myself as Lan. It was just easier.

Ah, bad case of Calibri...

[Basil]

One of the lead developers did call me Lan, though, I guess once she'd made the mistake, she decided to run with it, and then it was too late to correct her since we'd both then have to admit it. I think by the end, in any meeting she was in, I referred to myself as Lan. It was just easier.

Ah, bad case of Calibri...

 

[Mr Larrington]

I also know an Italian bloke yclept Andrea, specifically the one TV's Gary Solomon kept calling “Andreas”.

You can fault him for that.

 

FOREIGNS of European mien seem incapable of pronouncing “ian”, or even “Ian”, such that even BRITONS now refer to my grate frend Mr Sheen as “Yan”.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I also know an Italian bloke yclept Andrea, specifically the one TV's Gary Solomon kept calling “Andreas”.

You can fault him for that.

 

FOREIGNS of European mien seem incapable of pronouncing “ian”, or even “Ian”, such that even BRITONS now refer to my grate frend Mr Sheen as “Yan”.

Also words such as yeast or yield. And I'm sure someone somewhere has called their child Yeast.

[ian]

Some Americans seem to struggle with Ian too, which is a bit odd. But I'm often Jan in Europe. My goodly French colleague tries really hard but turns it into something that sounds like the bastard child of Ion/Iron. Still, she's not heard my pronunciation of Guillaume. We ended up calling him Le Bill. Though even then he quibbled the -ll.

I also, on a daily basis, have to stumble through a minefield of Julia-Julias and Julia-Yulias. Plus my boss has a j in her name where there should rightly be an i.

[Jurek]

Most non-polak people pronounce the 'J' in my name as the 'J' in juice.
It is, in fact, pronounced like the 'Y' in yacht.

[ian]

It's doubly complicated as one of the fraught Julia's is American, but she's still officially a Yulia.

And we do have an actual Yulia who, you guessed it, despite hailing from east of the Urals insists on Julia.

[Beardy]

We solved this problem on our internal directory by having an extra slot for people to insert their chosen name. But not many people knew that the could make changes to their entry and so didn’t actually make the necessary changes. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yebbut the problem in lan's case is pronunciation. Julia's name is Julia. The only system for denoting pronunciation that's going to not be misleading, particularly in a mulitlingual, multinational context, is IPA – and that's going to be worse than misleading because the vast majority of people don't know it.

[ian]

It's never really a problem, I work for a very diverse company, so we have consistent name pronunciation challenges, it makes for cross-border small talk at the start of meetings and introductions, instead of the weather.