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d_aulnoyOh. MY. GOD. I have just been hassled for having a different last name from my husband.
There's never been any question in my mind about changing my last name: for one thing, I'm the last of my family line, and I'd like to pass my weird heritage along, and for another, I've accomplished a hell of a lot under my name. I actually had a huge series of fights with one ex over the hypothetical situation: we were nowhere close to getting married, but it came up in passing, snowballed into a massive, multi-part conversation concerning the patriarchy, and probably directly contributed to our breakup ... which, really, was a good thing, because talk about synechdoche. One of the (many) reasons that I'm so happy with the Gnu is that he seems to completely lack these gendered hang-ups: he likes to say he's gender-blind, which can make for headaches when it comes to things like explaining the reality of catcalling to him ("Really? That happens? I've never seen that! Wait, it happens when we're out together?"), but is generally a blessing and a boon, as he just doesn't have it in him to resent my accomplishments, or to second-guess my proposing, or to quibble over naming conventions. Though, it should be noted that he didn't believe me when I groused about the inevitability of the sexist social pressures that I bet I'd get over the decision ....
So, the Gnu generously purchased a small shiny thing to celebrate our six month halfiversary: the only issue here is that FedEx with 2 working partners? Tough to coordinate. So I called FedEx to ask if they could narrow the window from "before 7" to, say, "between 5 and 7," or something like that. On my first attempt, I got a woman who kept calling me "Ma'am." Bad sign. In passing, she asked me what my name was, which I answered absent-mindedly before saying, "Oh, but the package is addressed to my husband, The Gnu." Well, she shut down. Wouldn't give me any further info., because of the different last names. Now, if it were a safety regulation, I could see it ... except I've checked on packages for friends and roommates before with no problems. And, no, none of my friends or roommates share my peculiar last name. When I pointed out that if I hadn't specifically mentioned my name, it wouldn't have been a problem, given that I, you know, had all of the necessary info., including sender, tracking number, etc., she went into full on Ma'am-mode, inserting it in every other sentence: then she suggested that I consider being "normal." Yeah. Direct quotation: "Well, then maybe you should think about changing your last name, or hyphenating, or something." Because, obviously, the problem here isn't an antiquated policy that I'm not even sure FedEx has: the problem is my weirdness. Which, in this day and age, isn't really all that weird .... And then when I requested to speak to a manager to discuss this policy - not my specific case, but the policy - with a final "Ma'am," she hung up on me. Dear god, I wish I remembered her name so as to call and complain ....
Luckily, the next person I called didn't have her hang-ups. Thank yew, Cynthia! But I'm still vaguely furious.
I wonder if the Gnu would consider ordering something else from FedEx under my name, just to repeat the process in reverse to see what kind of a reaction he'll get ....
P.S. - The entire moral of this story, aside from patriarchy pissesd_aulnoy off, is, "Remember your telephone representative's name, kids!" Maiden, or otherwise.
There's never been any question in my mind about changing my last name: for one thing, I'm the last of my family line, and I'd like to pass my weird heritage along, and for another, I've accomplished a hell of a lot under my name. I actually had a huge series of fights with one ex over the hypothetical situation: we were nowhere close to getting married, but it came up in passing, snowballed into a massive, multi-part conversation concerning the patriarchy, and probably directly contributed to our breakup ... which, really, was a good thing, because talk about synechdoche. One of the (many) reasons that I'm so happy with the Gnu is that he seems to completely lack these gendered hang-ups: he likes to say he's gender-blind, which can make for headaches when it comes to things like explaining the reality of catcalling to him ("Really? That happens? I've never seen that! Wait, it happens when we're out together?"), but is generally a blessing and a boon, as he just doesn't have it in him to resent my accomplishments, or to second-guess my proposing, or to quibble over naming conventions. Though, it should be noted that he didn't believe me when I groused about the inevitability of the sexist social pressures that I bet I'd get over the decision ....
So, the Gnu generously purchased a small shiny thing to celebrate our six month halfiversary: the only issue here is that FedEx with 2 working partners? Tough to coordinate. So I called FedEx to ask if they could narrow the window from "before 7" to, say, "between 5 and 7," or something like that. On my first attempt, I got a woman who kept calling me "Ma'am." Bad sign. In passing, she asked me what my name was, which I answered absent-mindedly before saying, "Oh, but the package is addressed to my husband, The Gnu." Well, she shut down. Wouldn't give me any further info., because of the different last names. Now, if it were a safety regulation, I could see it ... except I've checked on packages for friends and roommates before with no problems. And, no, none of my friends or roommates share my peculiar last name. When I pointed out that if I hadn't specifically mentioned my name, it wouldn't have been a problem, given that I, you know, had all of the necessary info., including sender, tracking number, etc., she went into full on Ma'am-mode, inserting it in every other sentence: then she suggested that I consider being "normal." Yeah. Direct quotation: "Well, then maybe you should think about changing your last name, or hyphenating, or something." Because, obviously, the problem here isn't an antiquated policy that I'm not even sure FedEx has: the problem is my weirdness. Which, in this day and age, isn't really all that weird .... And then when I requested to speak to a manager to discuss this policy - not my specific case, but the policy - with a final "Ma'am," she hung up on me. Dear god, I wish I remembered her name so as to call and complain ....
Luckily, the next person I called didn't have her hang-ups. Thank yew, Cynthia! But I'm still vaguely furious.
I wonder if the Gnu would consider ordering something else from FedEx under my name, just to repeat the process in reverse to see what kind of a reaction he'll get ....
P.S. - The entire moral of this story, aside from patriarchy pisses
d_aulnoy off, is, "Remember your telephone representative's name, kids!" Maiden, or otherwise.