Ugh!

Sometimes I get really annoyed and it's usually at work, like today. Why this time? People leave messages or send notes wanting our assistance or response. But they only give us their name. They don't spell it. They don't give us their donor number, address, phone number, or any way to contact them to find out who they are. They expect us to just know. They expect that they are the only person in the universe with their name. Unfortunately, we're not mind readers. If we were, we'd have won the lottery years ago and we'd be multi-billionaires lounging on some beautiful tropical beach sipping margaritas and not wasting our time working for a living dealing with cranky people. Unfortunately, there usually are more than one person with the same name. We have a data base of over 4 million people. Almost every name in it has not only a double but at least five other people with that name. Unfortunately, if both Mr. & Mrs. are a donor, if Mrs. gives her name, it's probably under Mister's name so we can't pull it up without more information. Or if only Mrs.' name is on the record and Mr. gives his name on the message, we won't find it either. Unfortunately, these scenarios happen several times a day, every day, in my office. It got old years ago. Now it's downright frustrating, especially when the person cops an attitude when we ask for more information. I know I'm not the only Ashley Ladd. Once another Ashley Ladd accused me of stealing her name. I doubt it's possible to find any name unless totally made up (and even then maybe not) that doesn't have at least two. Once, a long long time ago, when I was a newbie at the day job, I had a communication from a donor with a very unusual name (and no contact information). I only found one in the data base. So I sent a response to the person in the data base. Well, it turned out to be a totally different person with the same name. The one I contacted was incensed and things got worse from there. You can bet I never made that mistake again. I try not to get annoyed, but some days are harder than others not to. Friday, I had at least three like this in one day. Oh well, it's a living. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)