Throughout my more than forty years of wonderfully chaotic customer service I have seen some and been called by some very, shall we say, colorful names. Had one customer whose name was that of a 1980’s porn star. I couldn’t even call her Ms. (Insert porn name here) when I was checking her in, at least not without a giggle or a smirk, so she was forever just Jennifer or ma’am. Then there was the guest whose parents had to be mind numbingly high when they named her.
I have been called everything from Tammy to Ms. Mayhew to Ms. Tammy to ma’am, from sweetie to honey, to darlin, to godsend, from hey you, to bitch to cu@&, to dumbass, to moron. You name it and I was probably called it one time or another. I despised some and cherished others. Anyone who has spent any length of time as a service warrior will either quit the first time they get screamed and cussed at or they develop a thick skin, pretty damn quick. Since I was baptized into customer service at the tender age of ten, I calloused up early in life.
I was taught to be proud of your name and protect it at all cost. In the end it is all you have and no one can take it away from you. The other day I saw a question on an author and writing site I belong to asking the question, “What do you think of a pen name, yes or no?” Without hesitation I responded a firm and confident, NO. The next question was, “Why not?”
I got on my high horse and proclaimed in writing, “Because it is my name and my name alone, and I am and always have been proud of it. I hope whatever I do I make the parents who named me, the man who loves me, the maker who created me and myself proud. It is who I am, and all the crazy chaotic pieces of my life that have made me me. I embrace it all and want to hear someone ask, “would you sign my book?” and not have to wonder how to sign my name. It is the authentic, organic, insecurely confident me. I have not spent this last year unscripting my life only to place its worth in a name I have not lived.”
That is the eloquent, small town, prideful response I wrote, but after I sent it I remembered the 80’s Porn Star and the Named By High Parents guests and one other that had 24 letters in their last name alone and thought, hhmmm, maybe pen names aren’t so bad. What would your pen name be?