these are the people I share breathing space with

[meganbmoore]

Overheard just now(adult male, 20~):  "When they're married, is ir m-r-s or m-i-s-s?  And what's this m-s?"

I suspect they've always thought "miz" was a  proper spelling and title...

I would like to point out that this person has been using the system that requires you to attach a title for about 5 months now...

Comments

[nadiko.livejournal.com]

Oh boy....

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad it isn't contagious.

[nadiko.livejournal.com]

lol, that makes two of us!

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

At my university commencement, during the PhD awarding:

Business majors next to me with Honors sashes--

"Dude, did they all double major in philosophy?"

I never get tired of that. It also never stops making me sad.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

...

I want to cry now.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Systems that require that sort of information are an embarrassment waiting to happen. Our customer system at work is set so that everyone is just their initials unless a title is specifically added, likewise neither of the "male/female" boxes are ticked as a default. Of course it still has problems. For example, we are legally obliged to communicate with landowners named on certificates of title. So we have copious quantities of mail going out addressed to people under their maiden name, or addressed to dead people who's estates haven't been wound up, every quarter. And a regular stream of people wanting us to change their name who get antsy when I explain that we can't, by law, change it until they send us in a copy of their title (which isn't really what is required to change it - a notice of sale would do - but we have access to title data anyway and when the person goes to their filing cabinet to get a copy of their title they'll find it under the old name and, hopefully, realise they need to get their lawyer to do this whole transfer of ownership thingy).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh, definately an embarassment waiting to happen...I just wonder what that guy's been clicking the last few months.

[chomiji]

Yeah, that's the thought that occurred to me, too!

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Probably "Mr".

We in the GIS (i.e. mapping using computers) department at work got landed with managing the customer database because, of all our customer service staff, not one was competent at managing the system. When we inherited the system it was so full of mistakes, errors and embarrassing stuff-ups that we were close to getting taken to the cleaners. So, being the Official Office Picky Bastard, I got the job of having to tell the customer service morons to wake their ideas up. The end result was the incident a couple of years back when one of them stormed through to our office and threw a screaming hissy fit about being told he was doing stuff wrong...