" I have had this conversation three time in my biography at dissimilar job . "
A TikToker has gone viral for sharing how her name typically causes an awkward conversation with HR in the workforce:
sorry if i talk about this problem too much but it is HAPPENING AGAIN ! !
In her video, which has over 600,000 views, she shares: “Well y’all, it’s official, I have a new job, which means that I will be transitioning from my current position to a new one within the next two weeks. Amidst all of this excitement that I feel about this transition and this move and this new opportunity, I am filled with dread over one aspect of moving to a different job that I always face when I do this, which is having to have the tough conversation about how my name fits into a company email structure.”
“My name is Samantha Hart, and most companies use the email designation of first initial, last name, meaning that my email would be ‘shart.’ I’ve had two professional jobs so far, and at every single workplace, this has been the email company structure. And, at every single workplace, I have received an email from HR the week before I start letting me know that my name does not exactly fit the company email structure as they would intend and if I would mind if they gave me a different structure for my email. I always say, ‘Yeah’ — like, yeah, I don’t want an email that says shart! Yeah, fix it. Give me something else,” she continues.
“So now, as I transition to this new role, I did investigate the email structure at this new company, and they do, in fact, use first initial, last name, which means I am going to have another very uncomfortable conversation with somebody. At this point, I feel like I should just reach out right off the bat and say, ‘Look, you’re not going to want my email to be this. You’re going to want to give me something else.’ Or should I let them come to me? Should I let them initiate the conversation? What do you guys think? Should I do the short conversation which, by the end of this, I will have had three times in my life? It’s such a blessing to be me. Live, laugh, love, baby. Live, laugh, love.”
Right away, it was pretty unanimous among people that asking for the change right away was the best bet:
And IT specialists backed this:
However, the TikTok started a whole new conversation around names, including people who lived with the same dilemma:
Fellow sharters, if you will:
‘Cause there are lots of them:
And the struggle is real:
The shart-named convo soon turned into phart names:
People have to live with names like “SLUTZ”:
“PENIS”:
“TESTES”:
And “TWAT”:
This Sarah becomes “SOBER” when you write her first initial last name:
There is a “PLOWME” in the building:
And there is also a “MOUNTME” present:
Ashley is a seemingly typical name…until you add the last name “CID”:
Same with Sam, until it becomes “SADCOCK”:
This person’s becomes “HATER”:
And this person had to be a “DBHAG” all through high school:
Which is right up there with “INBUTT”:
And “AHOLLE”:
Some people’s names have even broke the database at their company:
But most of them just float in the system to give a giggle:
More names include a McDonald’s meal that hopefully never exists called “MCANUS”:
There is a “TRASH”:
“PECKER”:
And, sadly, “CUMLOVER”:
“CREAMY” is another one that I can’t get over:
“SPITCOCK” may be right up there in terms of shock value:
Same with “MILF”:
But, not all names are bad. Some, in fact, get to be Batman:
Either way, every soon-to-be parent now has another factor to consider when naming their child:
BuzzFeed spoke to Samantha, who said that although she was teased about her name in high school, it didn’t bug her. “Luckily, I’m hard to embarrass, and it was all in good fun. People knew I wouldn’t be upset if they made a joke about it; I’d laugh alongside them. There are still people from my high school who call me ‘Shart’ to my face, haha.”
And now that Samantha is in the professional world — working in non-profit media relations — she said it’s usually a topic of which HR professionals are conscious. “They dance around the topic or try to allude to it, asking if we can choose another email for me tactfully. I usually tell the story of the name and the email issue as an icebreaker when I’m in meetings with new people to break the ice and make myself more approachable — and to make people laugh.”
" My darling is when a company allows me to apply ' sam@ ' because it ’s just cooler . But you have to have a small company to be able to do that , so it does n’t happen often . Mostly , it ’s been just adding my middle initial , which can be a nuisance when people often bury to admit it or overlook it , " she added .
So, when it comes to her advice for people with unique names like hers, Samantha said all you can do is own it! “Being able to laugh about the unfortunateness and making it something I can joke about with people has become a type of superpower for me. You can either let people write your narrative, or you can steer it yourself. I could’ve been embarrassed and upset about having a name like I do, but instead I used it to make people laugh, feel more comfortable around me, and just embraced it as something funny that’s happened to me in my life. My parents and I laugh about it all the time to this day. You get to choose how you react to things, and leaning into my funny name has truly been a source of joy for me,” she concluded.
