Wednesday, September 02, 2009

I'm Betting That A Phillip Hart, By Any Other Name, Would Not Smell As Sweet

Yesterday at work, I received an e-mail from a vendor. The naming convention for his corporate e-mail account was (like many) the first letter of his first name and then his last name. So, the e-mail I got from Scott Loth was Sloth@company.com.

Things like this amuse me probably more than they should. Although when I mentioned it in my weekly team meeting, my boss shared an even better one -- his wife had once worked with a Phillip Hart, whose company also used that type of naming convention.
Another friend said she once worked with a Richard Ebel, who was anything but.

How about you guys? Seen any e-mail addresses that were particularly (and unintentionally) funny?

26 comments:

Badass Geek said...

Oh, I wish I encountered things like this at work. It might make it more bearable.

anna said...

I once knew a german guy called Werner Anker. now guess what his email address was...;)

Brutalism said...

BG - You need to do government contracting work. I deal with things like "super sack handling" and "Team Diarrhea" -- in addition to sloth-y vendors.

Anna - That is fantastic!

dilettante07 said...

I forgot--I once knew a Steven Mudge.

Pre-email days were so boring.

Brutalism said...

Tante (aka friend of Smudge) - No kidding. Though I do kind of long for pre e-mail days on days like this where I did a reply all (which included a client) on an e-mail to my co-worker about said client.

Dilettard07 said...

Indeed. Before e-mail, what reason would one have had to laugh at everyday names like Stephanie Loppycarl or Frank Udgepacker. Now...I am sure they get no end of crap from people they work with.

Carey said...

I'm so excited to read this and have an opportunity to share example I just experienced! (I work for a major corporation where any sign of laughter regarding anything even remotely sexual, political, or racial could bring on harassment accusations, so I often have to bite my tongue). I received an email from a Mr. Tim Watson just yesterday, whose email address was - you guessed it - TWat@(yadayadayada.com). Awesome!

Jaky said...

THis is really funny. Loved the observations. Mine would be pretty easy though. Jaky Astik for jastik

MC said...

for college, ours were 6 characters-- first initial, last initial, and the first four letters of our last name. Mine ended up being "mcwood", which, according to one of my kind classmates, sounds like "a hard-on from McDonald's"

Amanda C said...

I once worked with a girl named Beth Lowicki so we loved that hers was blowicki!

Brutalism said...

Okay, I love you all -- Twat, McWood, Blowicki, Sloppycarl, Jastik...you are killing me...

Critty Critty Bang Bang said...

I don't have anything funny to contribute but I have to admit I'm loving this post. *=-)

Brutalism said...

Not as funny...but I worked with a Dolores Rhine, so it looked like Dr. Hine (which is how we referred to her)...

dilettante07 said...

One person who is probably cursing the day the innernets came about is a certain Dr. Scott Hitt, who use to call the office where I worked back in the day.

I bet he's still a big phone person.

Dilettard07 said...

Of course, some names never need any doctoring of email truncation to be humorous. Back in my days as an investigator I came across this gem (and he's local):

http://www.gibsondunn.com/lawyers/cmuckenfuss

Brutalism said...

Or this...
http://kcanedo.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-could-never-be-receptionist-at-this.html

Seems like all the good names are reserved for lawyers.

OneZenMom said...

*snicker*

We have a C. Hunt, which I always thought was unfortunate. But nothing quite so good as yours. :)

T1T2 said...

I knew a man called Frank Hart, but I don't think he knows how to use a computer.

The Absurdist said...

As 'tard said some names just make their own gravy:

Before he retired my father was an obesity surgeon and one of his patients was a 500lb, 6'5" gentleman named T.B. [lastame] who legally changed his name to just the initials when he turned 18 and *never* told anyone what it stood for again. He offered that if he lost the amount of weight my father promised he'd reveal his birth name. Over the course of three years he did lose the weight (and more) so being a man of his word he held up his side of the deal. His given name? "Tiny Baby". You'd hide behind your initials too.

Even better a former customer of mine was a German fellow named Gaylord Siemens. The Germans couldn't figure out why we could barely control our snickers when on conference calls with him. Yes, we're still 14.

The Absurdist said...

And one more I have yet to verify, but I will try to do so soon:

My wife, who claims to have physical evidence, went to college with a girl whose hippy parents named her "Love". That's not too bad, right?

It is if your last name is "Seamen" which hers was. She claimed to really like her name, but something tells me there was a lot of back-room self-medication going on.

Dilettard07 said...

Oh yes. The Hippie names. Those shouldn't even count they are so much fun. Someone I dated--years ago YEARS ago!--went to school with a guy named Fillmore. Fillmore Loveintotheworld. And you guessed it, California.

Dilettard07 said...

But I also saw this piece on the BBC web site, about children being exposed to e. coli at a farm/petting zoo in Surrey:

"Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said he would be writing to HPA chief executive Justin McCracken to demand an urgent review into how the case was handled."

Ya gotta love the BBC

Cockey said...

Dude, really....Look at my name...recently in my ESPN fantasy football league they shorten the names of the teams to the first four letters of the team owners last name. Thus Team Cockey became...which I think is actually phenominal.

My drivers license only allows room for a certain number of letters in the name section so because my parents blessed me with the longest name in the world, without fail the DMV listed my entire full name minus the last two letters. go figure.

Krennie said...

Tennis friend Angela Hogge email address ahogge
Who can forget the gentleman who leases shopping center space from us Hung Long

Brutalism said...

Cockey...I am sorry, but I cannot feel sympathy as someone who once made the high school honor roll as

Steenberg, Kathleen Virgin

Brutalism said...

Tante/Tard - and if Fillmore Loveintotheworld married Justin McCracken...they would be Fill McCracken...(or "rafting the tenderloin canyon" as Straight Guy would say)