Tuesday 11 October 2011

Stereotyping

Yesterday I received a call from a business consultant to confirm our meeting this morning.
"Can I speak to Mr Ting?", he asked.
"You mean Ms Ting?", I replied, feeling a bit annoyed.

He sounded quite embarrassed when he apologised for the faux pas. I have every reason to feel annoyed because it happens all the time.

If you are a consultant who is coming to offer your services, I hope you'll do some homework before walking through our door. Please don't assume I am a man just because I'm in a male dominated industry.

Granted I the one who has to change the lightbulb, paint the wall and trim the hedge at home, I'm still every bit a woman. Thank you very much.

10 comments:

Open Kitchen Concept said...

Oh.. People look at my name and call me Mr Lim

Malar said...

I have the same experince here too! People look at my name card and call me Mr.Thiru!...sigh...!

Fresh Fry aka 福星 said...

dun fret, i'm Mr Geno....well, given that Geno is a dude's name, but the realisation came tooooo late. lol

Blur Ting said...

OKC - I must admit your name can be rather hard to tell but you know my real name right? It can't be that hard for a local person to not realise that I am not a man!

Blur Ting said...

Malar - I can totally understand how you feel, especially when you receive calls on a bad day!

Blur Ting said...

Fry - Hehe, I have a supplier called Gino. He's a guy :-)

Petunia Lee said...

Well... look on the brighter side. It's better than when people call you Mr Ting AFTER they see you right?

Amel said...

I remember mistaking a Finnish male name as a female one 'coz I wasn't used to Finnish names at all (this was before I moved to Finland), but it was really embarrassing for me when I realized my mistake he he...

Blur Ting said...

Petunia - LOL, good one!

Blur Ting said...

Amel - I often have a problem with foreign names too.

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