Two other people with the same name as me were hired a month ago and... (UPDATED)

[Towncrier]

The fun hasn't stopped. I keep getting their emails welcoming them to Philips. I keep getting their meeting invitations. Today I got notification from American Express that one of the other John's application for a corporate credit card is being processed. But the best of all was the phone call that I got from Philips Travel last week. They told me that they had tried to charge travel to the credit card in my personal profile (my personal Visa card) and that the charge had been denied. I had cancelled the card a couple years ago and, since I haven't travelled on business, I never bothered to update my profile. Good thing. Because the travel that they were booking was for one of the "other" John Hayes'. Imagine the mess if my Visa card had been charged for his hotel, airline tickets, and rental car.

The problem stems from the fact that our corporate standard email policy is firstname.lastname@philips.com - unless there are duplicate names in which case they append a person's middle initial to their first name. (UPDATE - it turns out that they add the person's middle initial and another dot) Now mind you, Philips has many thousands of employees worldwide. I was surprised that I was the only John Hayes in the worldwide directory. And that was the case until 4 weeks ago. I guess that people are careless and don't use the directory feature of Lotus Notes to address emails.

So here I sit, wondering what emails of mine are in his inbox. And what the next stupid trick that Human Resources or Philips Travel is going to pull.

I think I should just change my name to Mike Wazowski.

 

[RUDisney]

That really stinks. My DH and I work for the same bank and we often times get each other's calls because the caller doesn't look to see who's first name is attached to our last.

When my one aunt lived around us, in the early-to-mid-70s, she had the same name as my mother. Whenever Mom would try to present a check at a store, she'd be denied that privilege if my aunt had been there before her. Although we were sorry to see Auntie move across the country, Mom was relieved... she could shop in peace.

Is there a way for the company to put a flag on your records so that you're contacted prior to any information being divulged, or accounts being used on your behalf? At least you'd be forewarned about what the other John Hayes is up to.

Good luck.... maybe he'll be fired soon.... I just hope they don't screw that up too.

 

[Pin Wizard]

There were 4 or 5 with my name throughout the company when I worked at the hospital (part of Tenet Healthcare.) They ended up putting WBO after my name which tells them where I'm located. For a while, my e-mail was going to someone with the same name but in Dallas.

 

[tiggerlover]

Hi Mike.....ooops I mean John.

Sorry to hear about the confusion, it must be a real pain. Any way you can get in touch with this other guy and see if he is getting any of your mail?

Hope things get better before they get worse.

 

[snoopy]

I have someone with the same name as me as well. We use firstname.middleinitial.lastname, but someone accidentally sent a really gossipy email to me instead of the person with the same first and last name but different middle initial. It was rather hilarious, if I do say so myself. Good thing they sent it to me and not some bigwig, or they would probably have found themselves without a job.

 

[nkjzmom]

Sorry...I just have to say....

"Put that thing back where it came from or so help me, so help me, so help me, and cut!"

 

[Tink42]

I actually just got off the phone with a utility company of a city several hundred miles away from us. They said my husband owed them money but it was someone with the same name. This is not the first time we have been called about this guy. A cable company and a credit company have called us also. We have a very unusual last name and I think people assume it must be the same guy.

 

[jfulcer]

John, maybe you could ask them to use:

Crier.Town@philips.com

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

<font color=navy>Hmmm... and the first thought that popped in my mind was that your coworker's name is Towncrier.

 

[Serena]

So what are you going to do, what can you do?

 

[Robin]

Towncrier -

You work for our competitor!

 

[JulesMom]

What a bummer!

I like jfulcer's suggestion Crier.Town@philips.com

 

[Micca]

Since you're both getting each others stuff, what's his wife like? Joking, of course.

 

[Towncrier]

I just found out that Philips hired TWO people named John Hayes in the past month. Twice the confusion. Triple the fun.

 

[browneyes]

Do these guys have a dw with the same name as your dw? That would be too weird.

 

[Towncrier]

Good question. My wife and sister are both Susan. And since they lived in the same town for a while, it caused some confusion with doctor's records.


Robin - You mean you've heard of Philips???
How about Marconi???
Or Picker???

Our corporation name reminds me of the Jefferson Starship song titled "We Built This City" (since it contains a reference to Marconi and the fact that corporations are always changing names). In the past 7 years, I've had to change email addresses 5 or 6 times based on the corporate name-de-jour. Even my current business cards have the wrong email address on them. The only consistent email address that I've had of the course of 7 years is the one that I registered on Disney's go.com site.

 

[becka]

I know that feeling quite well. About a year and a half ago a my company hired a new agent in Oklahoma that has the same name as me. I found out when one of the guys here in the IS department started asking me about why I was becoming an agent after working for serveral years as a programmer. They were in the process of switching all of my logon ids, etc.

I had to actually change my e-mail address since we just use first name initial with last name. She got rxxxxxx@ and I had to change to bxxxxxx@... This caused even more confusion because my co-workers already knew me by the rxxxxx@ address. Also since she is an agent and I am in IS at the corporate office our names are in two different address books on Lotus Notes and people do not bother to check to see which one of us they are sending their mail to. We get lots of each others mail and we just try to forward it on as best as we can but I have still missed important meetings, etc. because the mail was sent to the wrong person.

To make matters even worse they got our health insurance deductibles messed up last year. She is covered by her husband's policy so she set up a $10,000 deductible while mine was only $500. When I was about 4 months pregnant early last year my OB's office told me that I had a $10,000 deductible! I was so upset and I just burst into tears. When I tried to talk to the people here at work they just kept telling me that they had a piece of paper authorizing them to change my deductible for the year. I kept telling them that I did no such thing but they would not believe me. The finally pulled up the form and sure enough the agent was the one to change her deductible but the silly form only lists a name with no other type of identifier like employee number so they just changed the deductible for me. It was such a hassle.

Then about two months later the agent lets me know that she is also expecting. She just wanted to let me know in case there was even more confusion with the health claims department.

What was even more scary was after I had my son and sent her the announcement she was shocked to see that we had named him Nathan Alexander. If her and her DH were to have a boy guess what name they had picked for him? Nathan Alexander! It is a good thing she had a girl because I just don't think our claims department could handle two Rebecca XXXXXX's both with sons named Nathan Alexander XXXXXX.

 

[browneyes]

Originally posted by Towncrier
Good question. My wife and sister are both Susan. And since they lived in the same town for a while, it caused some confusion with doctor's records.

My name is Shannon. My SO's SIL's name is Shannon. My SO has a cousin-in-law named Shannon. 2 out of the 3 Shannons have the same last name. At one time, all 3 of us lived VERY near to each other (almost next door). I can legally use the same last name they do, but I like to be original. All 3 of us use the same GP, they constantly have to make sure the dr's have the correct chart when they go in (one was born 1/20, the other 9/20, so sometimes the staff see the right name, and the correct day, but wrong month/year of birth ). 2 of us used the same OB/GYN when we were pregnant. I know a lot about the confusion of names.

Are those guys around your age too? Maybe you're such a good worker your employer thought everyone with your name would be an asset to the company.

 

[Eeyoregal]

Towncrier - thanks so much for getting that song stuck in my head!!!

"Marconi plays the mamba....."