Why I don’t go by ‘Jim’.
My father and I both have the same name. So to make it less of a headache on both of us, he goes by Jim, and I go by James. And where the legal, given name is required, one of us will usually stick our middle initial in there as well–which, admitedly, can also be problematic given as that’s also the same. In 24 years, I’ve never willingly answered to Jim–willingly, of course, meaning that there are always those few people who just don’t really care either way and call me whatever comes to mind. So when I got a phone call this morning asking for ‘Jim’, I was admitedly a little confused/irritated. He asked for him by last name, too, so sure, I figured it was going to be for either me or my father–if it’s for the latter they pulled the number out of the wrong phone book. I still have no idea who this guy is, and then he mentions that I did a job for him a while back on behalf of the ministry of labour. By this time I’ve gone from general curiosity to “Zuh?”. Okay, so now he’s not looking for me *or* my father. Now how do we get him out of *that* awkward situation? worst of it is, he called from a Toronto number, so he just paid Bell Canada some coin to be told to try again. I almost felt sorry for the guy, but… then I figured, I needed some amusement. And that was it. I gotta get a life…
