…and you are?

The other day I was dropping off some coffee for a customer and one of the employees at the store came out….blah blah…talk talk….we introduced ourselves. I was happy. I was very happy, and I’ll tell you why. The man stood there with a gift from heaven. Yes, if you can imagine this: He had his name “Mike”, embroidered to his shirt. There it sat, happily perched upon his left chest, embroidered in a contrast blue stitching to his baby blue button down shirt. What I loved about this is that, unlike my typical lame self, when I forget a person’s name about 1 minute after I meet them, I had his little shirt to tell me who he was, and I could say in style as I walked away, “nice to meet you M-I-K-E”. Yeah. Nice touch, I know.

I’ve met a few hundred new people in the last months, and I have to say, I’m much better at remembering names than I used to be. Inevitably, though, someone will walk in the front door of my store, know exactly who I am, and I’ll have no idea what their name is. I scan to the left chest to see if by chance I’m blessed with an embroidered reminder, or a plastic badge bearing the two legged human’s name without looking like I’m checking if it’s cold outside. Why couldn’t this person just have come back from “Learning to Talk to Your Teenager” seminar and have the “Hello My Name Is” sticker still conveniently pasted over the chocolate doughnut stain on their shirt? Come on…help a sista out.

Here’s the unfairness of it all. I’m aware that half of the faces who “know” me are cheating anyway, as they walk in my door and say “hello Lizzy”. Nice work, but they’ve just read the “Lizzy’s Fresh Coffee” store hours on the front door. Anyone who has met me knows that I NEVER introduce myself as Lizzy. I don’t go by Lizzy, I don’t smell like a Lizzy, and I only have one friend on the planet who calls me that, and it’s usually after I’ve had a cocktail or two. I’m Liz, and my brand is someone else. I’m not near nice enough to be called that anyway, where as she (my company) is a nicer, sweeter, more patient, and much more bubbly version of Elizabeth (a name only saved for my mother and friends who knew me in the 3rd grade).

Once a person proclaims the “Lizzy”, as I like to call it, I feel like I know something about the person standing before me that they don’t know that I know (like maybe they cheat when they’re the banker during a game of Monopoly). I laugh a little inside, smile back, scan for the name tag, feel defeated, and say “nice to see you again”. I muddle through a couple minutes of conversation that ends in the victorious hand over of the credit card….Ah the glory of retail. My heart pounds, I feel relieved, and I say as the person turns to leave….
“Thanks for coming in, J-I-M”.