Tuesday 28 April 2009

That's not my name...

Not only is that one of my favorite TingTing songs it's also the story of my life. I am constantly being called Caroline, specifically, it seems, when working in the restaurant industry. These indiviudals have been told that my name is Katherine and that I am from North Carolina which seems to equal Caroline in their eyes. I wasn't sure if it was because most of the restaurant industry in London consists of non-native English speaking people or because the people in the industry are constantly changing so they just don't bother to really learn anyone's name correctly.

It started almost 4 years ago working at Ransome's Dock where Antony started calling me Caroline. I contributed this mistake to the fact that the man drank Sambuca from 11:30 in the morning, often times starting before we had eaten staff lunch and would then take the rest of the bottle to bed with him at night, if that was me I'd probably forget my own name much less the name of some random bartender.

This takes me to my new job working in an Italian restaurant where there seems to be two extremes of my name. Not only do I get called Caroline on occasion, which I just accept and respond to, there are a few individuals on staff who refer to all 4 receptionists as Katerina (said with a thick Italian accent), even the head receptionist, Olga, who has worked there for 6 years. I only recently discovered this as I assumed whenever they said Katerina they were speaking to me but the french receptionist named Aurelia would also respond telling me, "Oh, they call all of us Katerina" and it seems as in my Caroline they've given up on correcting the mistake.

Fred seems to think that this is almost a sign of respect that in 3 months of working there it's my name they have choosen to refer to all the females with. And in the mean time I am taking this opportunity to teach the Italians more about North Carolina. Recently I saw that Miss North Carolina won the Miss America pagent which went into my curriculum and also explaining the difference between North and South Carolina. I also refered to the Miss America pagent again by showing them the infamous response by Miss South Carolina in which she turned an answer that should have showcased the inability for Americans to locate the US on a world map into how we should help countries such as Asia, South Africa, and "the Iraq" with their education, seems maybe the Iraq could offer her a few pointers.

Anyways, Katherine Duke Forehand Smith is my name but you can call me what you like, except for Kathy.