Friday, November 13, 2009

For starters, you can stop calling me 'sir'

I was just reading a little from The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown when I came across something that left me in stitches. Thing is, I could totally relate to it.

Let me just extract this portion from pg 66 and you can have a read:
Langdon clutched the police chief's phone and felt a rising frustration as the OS director pressed him. "I'm sorry, sir," Langdon said tersely, "but I can't read your mind. What do you want from me?"
"What do I want from you?" The OS director's grating voice crackled through langdon's phone, scraping and hollow, like that of a dying man with strep throat.
As the man spoke, Langdon felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and his eyes were drawn down... directly into the face of a tiny japanese woman. She had a fierce expression, a mottled complexion, thinning hair, tobacco-stained teeth, and an unsettling white scar that sliced horizontally across her neck. The woman's gnarled hand held a cell phone to her ear, and when her lips moved, Langdon heard the familiar raspy voice through his cell phone.
"What do I want from you, Professor?" She calmly closed her phone and glared at him. "For starters, you can stop calling me 'sir'"
Now what has this got to do with me, you might wonder?

I just recently sent a work related e-mail to this certain someone. Knowing that in the corporate mail, our full name would come out as the Sender. So, keluarlah; "From: Azlul Adilah Zaghlol" di dalam e-mail tersebut.

Just to be safe, though, I would normally sign-off all my e-mails in this manner:
Salam,
Dilla
Sweet, kan?

Not long after, I received the reply:
Dear Encik Azlul,
....

Saya faham, nama Azlul itu adalah agak berbaur unisex. My brother and ALL my 5 sisters have Azlul in front of their names. Lainlah kalau Azrul. Azrul itu, nama seorang lelaki. Suami saya pun bernama Azrul.

So, Encik Azlul? ENCIK Azlul, did you say???

Tolonglah.
Do me a favour and check my second name. Adilah tu nama lelaki ke perempuan? Takde guna lah saya meng-sign off dengan nama manjaku itewww!

Awak, saya penatlah nak bagitau orang saya ni seorang perempuan!!!!


-dillz blogging out-

13 comments:

~ said...

kak dila,

me soooo understand!!
my office email uses full name as well... [last name, first name] rule. my name jadik nya = "Binti Za1nul Abid1n, Za$ya ... so i got people addressing me with "Dear Abidin", "Dear Zainul".... and the best so far is "Dear Binti".

Apakah?

dillazag said...

zasya,
hahahahahahahahaha..
kesian kan, kat kita berdua..

SJ said...

Dear Kak Long (hello, i'm a friend of ema's),

when i liaise with ppl not from Malaysia, I get (Mr.)s a lot too..

uuhh.. yang binti tu pun pernah kena. until i told the IT people to remove the Binti.

if it gets worse, i guess i should start signing off with a (Ms.) at the end of my name lah

SJ said...

eh sorry Kak Ngah.. (kihkihh.. maluuu) (*^_^*)

Anonymous said...

akak,
amboi tak puas hati nampak hihihi

~cik ros

Along said...

Hahahah..this is funny. I can relate. When I first started work, I would get emails that started with "Dear Mr Idris". Hmmm..itu ayah saya, bukan saya. Sabar je la. For a year, I would sign my emails "Ms Azlina". Itu pun kekadang dpt jugak some "Dear Sir" replies. Bangang!!

dillazag said...

SJ,
Kesian gak.. Tapi, kasik chan lah diorang bukan orang Malaysia.. Bolehlah nak dimaafkan...
hihihihi

cik ros,
Encik Azlul tak puas hati nih.. :)~~

Along,
Tu la. After all the precautionary steps taken pun, masih FAIL! hihihihihi..

kucingorengemok said...

ehehehhh... tapi lelaki pun ada nama adilah kan? or was it azilah (teringat kes c4)..

dillazag said...

KOG,
itu Azilah.. tapi rupanya, my hubby ada senior nama Mohd Adilah..
Bajet la, Mohds sure lelaki punya... :)

The Hand That Holds The Quill... said...

he he... I too face the same problem. Yg best tu, I even started signing my name with a "Ms", yet still they addressed me as "Encik" or "Sir"...

I guess they are too busy being important to notice or care for what may seem as a trivial matter to them kot...he he he

dillazag said...

Rin,
Tu lah.. Ngong betul tau orang macam ni, tau!
:)

ZMJ said...

wakakaka...i got that too sometimes...Encik Zaihasra..haahha...

dillazag said...

Hai Zai!!!! :)
Wah, leaving your mark, finally!
Tu la.. nama you pun agak universal.. Takleh nak decipher laki ke pompuan. hihihihihihihi

BTW, How is the family and how's the business going, dear? We really need to catch up lah!
(((((((zai))))))