August 14, 2024 at 11:19 am

Her Co-Worker Told People Her Real Name When She Didn’t Want It To Be Known, So She Called Him Out At Work And Got Him Into Trouble

by Matthew Gilligan

Here’s a life tip: if someone asks you nicely to call them by a specific name, just do it and don’t make an issue out of it.

Things to much easier this way!

But you know how folks can be…they have to make everything difficult and dramatic.

Read the Reddit story below and see if you think this teenager did anything wrong.

AITA for getting a coworker in trouble over a name?

“I (17F) grew up attending an overnight camp from the ages of 7-13.

A few members of staff stayed year after year and I got to know them pretty well. One of the benefits of being on the staff at this particular camp is that it hires mainly non-Americans.

I am one of four Americans on a seventy person staff. The only downside to this is that everyone I work with has a moderate accent, and I chose to use a name that can be hard to pronounce for non-native speakers.

Here’s the deal…

I have a first and middle name. My first name is very common and easier to pronounce but I stopped using it when I was twelve and elected to go by my middle name.

My middle name is more difficult to pronounce and many of my coworkers struggle to say it. I told people that they could refer to me by just the first letter, but I have made one exception.

My friend “Amy”(28F) has worked at the camp for as long as I’ve been a camper. She was my counselor almost every summer and now that I’m also part of the staff we’re really close.

Since that first summer she has called me by a nickname that is based off of my first name.

She’s the only one who has ever been allowed to call me that, and asked at the beginning of the summer if she could continue to use it. I said yes, because I find it endearing.

There’s one problem…

Now here is where I might be an *******.

Another one of my coworkers, “Ben” (23M), has overheard Amy use the nickname and has asked if he could use it to.

This is Ben’s first summer at camp, so I don’t know him super well and asked him to please not. Now he won’t stop bugging me.

He tells me that my name is beautiful, that I shouldn’t be ‘ashamed’ to use it (I’m not ashamed I just don’t like it), and that if Amy gets to use it its obviously not a big deal. I told him ‘no’ over and over again.

This guy sounds like a weirdo.

Ben was unhappy with this apparently because yesterday I heard campers calling me my first name. I wasn’t sure if they were talking to me or not because I’ve never told them my first name.

They were shouting it, and every time I asked them to stop, they would giggle and laugh. Kids do that kind of thing. I brought it up yesterday at team meeting and asked Ben if he had told the kids my name.

He said he ‘must have let it slip’. He added, “they won’t stop using it so it must be okay for everyone to use it now”.

She’s pretty annoyed about this.

I told him, and every other member of staff in that room that if anyone tries to call me by my first name or encourages campers to call me by my first name I simply wouldn’t respond.

The sentiment of the room was that the staff had my back, and I caught many people glaring at Ben during the rest of the meeting.

After the meeting I saw our boss pull him into the office, and when he came out he told me that if I really had a problem with it I could have just said ‘no’ or told him to stop.

He said I didn’t have to bring it up in front of the entire staff. A few other of my coworkers had the same thoughts. I feel like I tried to say ‘no’ and ‘stop’ but wasn’t listened to.

AITA?”

And here’s what folks said on Reddit.

This reader shared their thoughts.