Ask a Manager: Employee Doesn't Want to Use a Name

[ermingarden]

I manage a team of twelve people within an exponentially larger organization. One of my employees has chosen to longer use a name. Due to past family trauma, they find their old (dead) name painful but have yet to settle on a replacement, preferring to be called nothing at all. While I 100% support this personally, I’m finding that it’s causing issues professionally.

For the most part, the team is supportive. People try their best not to dead name this individual but have some difficulty with communication, especially in group situations. Examples:

• We have an open office plan with individual desks as well as task-specific stations. Everyone is within earshot, so typically, if one person needs to speak to someone else, we address them by their name (“Hey, Moira…”) which allows everyone else to tune out. However, with this employee, one now needs to hover over their desk to get their attention, followed by the “prairie dog effect” of everyone else bobbing and swiveling to determine if they’re being spoken to.

• Meetings and group discussions aren’t a problem if everyone is in a circle making eye contact, but that’s never going to happen. This is a key employee whose expertise is often sought, but it can be hard to navigate around how to address them and get their attention. Often other team members often slip up and say things like, “DeadName, could you weigh in on this?” Obviously, it hurts this employee’s feelings to be deadnamed, but people find it hard to address them or single them out in a group situation without a name, especially if it’s hard to make eye contact.

• There’s also an issue of how to reference them. For example, people from other departments frequently ask me who oversees a project. For another employee, I’d just say, “That would be Twyla,” but that doesn’t work here. Usually, I give their job title but have gotten pushback because our duties are flexible and, technically, they are not the only person with that job title. Also, if it’s a new questioner, they inevitably ask what the employee’s name is, which leads to a discussion I feel out of place having. Or they want to know who they are, which means I must lead them to the employee in question and introduce them. (Pointing or descriptions seem awkward.)

This is true for written communication, too:

• Unfortunately, the techs at our home office cannot find a workaround for the company convention of firstname.lastname @ company. com, which means that people (usually from outside the team) who don’t know this employee, will address emails to “Hi, DeadName.” This is upsetting to the employee. Also, we cannot come up with a professional-sounding solution for their email signature without a name.

• We do team emails in which people are assigned tasks for a particular project. It usually looks like:
David: Can you please adjust the copy of the attached presentation and pass it to Stevie to proofread?
Stevie: After proofreading, please pass to Alexis for publication…

The only acceptable workaround I’ve found for this is a blank space underline like: “____: Please check the numbers on the presentation and add your analysis.”

• We order weekly coffee and pastries from the cafe downstairs, and there’s been drama over names on the cups. If I’m the one ordering, I ask the barista to just put a happy face or star on the employee’s order, but often it’s not me and other team members forgets. Or sometimes the barista insists on following their corporate policy of a name on every cup. (Fictional character names work for that. Congrats, you’re “Hagrid.”)

Here’s the crux: my grandboss feels strongly that, for office purposes, this employee needs to “just pick a name and stick with it.” While this feels morally/interpersonally wrong to me, I’m not sure how I can push back. HR seems flummoxed by the situation but suggested we be “as accommodating as possible within reason.” Do you have any advice as to how to best navigate these issues or deal with the grandboss’s ruling?

Yeah, they need to have a way to be referenced at work. I don’t agree with your boss that they have to permanently stick with whatever they select, but they do need to pick something so that other people can function efficiently, even if they change it down the road.

It’s not reasonable to expect a business to function without a way to refer to individual employees.

They can use an initial or other letter, a nickname, or a placeholder name, but they need to designate some way for other people to refer to them while they’re settling on a more permanent replacement.

Comments

[ermingarden]

I definitely agree with Alison on this one – I'm trying to imagine attempting to function at work when you have no way to specifically refer to a coworker! It's not reasonable to expect the employee to decide immediately on something permanent, but they really need to pick a placeholder. (I also really want to know what industry this is in that things have even slightly been functioning thus far.) Perhaps the employee could go by "X" – or, if they have a sense of humor about it, "N. A."?

[ashbet]

I think that the employee picking an initial that they can go by (I actually have a friend who goes by "M" or "Mmy," pronounced "Em/Emmy," although that's due to dislike of their given name, rather than dysphoria about it) is the best solution, until they settle on a chosen first name.

I think the LW really is trying to be accommodating, but you need SOME form of address in a professional situation.

[minoanmiss]

Along the lines of last names such as "Barber" or "Baker" can they call this employee by their position? Assistant Records Manager?

ETA reread letter, found that they tried that and it didn't work. Also read discussion (very long) and found that way too many (as in more than none) suggested calling the employee a number. Sigh.

[cimorene]

I have interpersonal empathy, but on a practical level this is just so ridiculous that it's funny. The situation could be the setup for a farce! I mean, in fact, that might be a really good farce.

But anyway, I'm amazed they have not settled on some work nickname. Like, if they're not the only Payroll, "The Payroll with red hair" or "The third Payroll from the front"!

And I like X, too - that might be an easier letter for temporary use because it's the unknown variable, instead of implying quite so readily an initial. Or they could just use something like "Anon" or "Nom de Plume" or whatever.

[purlewe]

oh I feel for all involved. I wonder tho.. how is HR going to deal with say.. tax records? w4s? Even if just a placeholder name is created.. it would be better than no name at all. Go for something fun that always makes you smile.

[green_grrl]

Unfortunately I think deadname will be involved with government paperwork until they decide on a permanent name and do a name change. It seems like the majority of the issue was what to call them during day to day work interactions.

[cereta]

The human being in me who hates the name her parents chose for her and was so, so grateful when friends went along with the switch to a chosen name feels for the employee. The teacher in me is trying to imagine how this would play out in the classroom and is blinking a lot.

[naath]

Can we call you Bruce? the coworker formerly known as Bob is clearly a bad choice here

[minoanmiss]

the coworker formerly known as Bob is clearly a bad choice here

Prince references notwithstanding, yeah.

[azurelunatic]

I went with my old initials at work while I looked for something better. It was weird, but at least people weren't CALLING me THAT NAME.

[viggorlijah]

Why on earth aren’t they using their surname? This is Bob, Peiling and Smith.

[melannen]

If it's because of family trauma, the surname might be just as bad for them as the first name.

That said, pick *something*, and something that will work on computerized forms. A randomly chosen pair of initials will do. The Nameless One. something.

[castiron]

In the comments it's noted that the person's issues are with their entire name, so going by their surname isn't an option.

And that said, they need to come up with *something*, even if it's temporary or a work pseud. (I liked Lorem Ispum myself.)

[torachan]

It's their whole name!? They needed to have chosen their new name before they ever brought it up, tbh. This request to not ever be referred to anything is beyond ridiculous and is not something that can or should be given any consideration.

Like it's great that this manager wants to be accomodating, but you can't accomodate every ridiculous request. If this person claimed they were multiple anime characters and you had to refer to them as such, that would not be a reasonable request. (Thankfully so far this is one I've only seen online, not IRL, but I'm getting a similar vibe from this person in terms of disconnection from reality.)

[cereta]

I keep waiting for that to turn up in my class, although everything I know about anime has been taught by my kid, so maybe it has. My first semester here, I had one student who asked to be called "Dr. X." Apparently, there are things I won't go along with. In fairness, I had JUST finished my Ph.D., and was a little prickly on the subject.

[torachan]

Oh my god this person sounds like a nightmare. Why can't they just use their last name? Why is everyone falling over themselves to coddle them like this? jfc.

[minoanmiss]

I think, on the latter question... people in general have gotten much more knowledgeable about callling people what people choose to be called, rather than deadnaming them, giving non-Western people Western names, etc. So LW's other employees are saying, "this coworker does not want to be called by this name, so we won't. But their lack of any other name is causing issues. What do we do!" I don't think I'd know if I were in their place -- it would be wildly inappropriate to name another adult, but how hard should one push them for a new name, ethically?

[ermingarden]

Especially with the manager not having insisted that the employee needs to pick some way for people to refer to them, I'd imagine none of the other employees wants to be the first to push back. (Particularly since the employee seems to have been pretty open that this is about past trauma.)

[sathari]

I'm reminded of the concept of "handles" and "callsigns"--- things that aren't your actual name but that are used to refer to you in a particular setting. Maybe they need to talk with the employee about having one of those--- like, "I know this isn't your true name and if/when you have one we'll use it for you, but in the meantime we need something you're okay with that just means 'this piece of work communication is directed at this specific employee'?"