The Art of Nicking

Nicknames have been a prominent part of this tale from the beginning. It is not just an attempt at protecting the people I work with and keeping things anonymous, though that helps. Nicknames have been a way for me to tell stories about people no one knows in a way they’ll remember the character from one story to the next. It did not start intentionally; it was just easier to tell my friends about Girl That Looks Like A Boy than trying to get people to remember who she really was. However, once the nicknames became prevalent, they became expected and people began asking what their nicknames were. The problem was that I had different nicknames for people depending on who I was with. I felt awkward telling stories about The Cunt around my mom, so I had to come up with alternates, like Dirty Downunder or Damn Dirty Whore (which knowing women and their aversion to the c-word, these are much, much better). Another problem comes when someone asks their nickname and you don’t have anything nice for them.

The office does become a bit confusing at times when you mention Cubers by their nickname to someone who isn’t in on the joke. When Hot Legs, a cougar in another department who still has some moves to show off, asks who has been working on someone’s issue and you tell her The Gimp, she doesn’t know who your talking about, plus she wants to know who and what a gimp is. On the other hand, when your relationship with most customers is by phone and their knowledge of the others in the office are from your stories they don’t seem to know that when they’re talking to “Bob” they’re really talking to Nate Dogg. Especially when Nate Dogg doesn’t know, nor understand his nickname.

Not all nicknames are successful. A few people have had several nicknames that all failed before they got one that stuck, or I just gave up. A previous boss was initially nicknamed Loafers, which came from the fact that he always wore Penny Loafers to work. It ended up falling flat when it came to light that he was gay, and Loafers ended up sounding derogatory (as in “light in the loafers”, a euphemism for being gay). In the end, Loafers left the Call Center without having a nickname at all. The Gimp was one of the hardest people to nick a name. For the longest time he was so non-descript that nothing stuck. He came in, did his job, talked very little, did even less to stick out, and didn’t complain too much. Doesn’t Give A Shit Guy just wasn’t working. It wasn’t until he repeatedly jumped on the Tweedle Dee grenade and went to lunch with him and ended up walking out to the garage with him at the end of the day, despite have the same hatred for Tweedle Dee as everyone else that we realized what a sadist or living martyr he really was.

One of the side effects of writing these stories is that people who read it, the very few there are, all want a nickname like I give all the other people in my life. People don’t seem to realize or understand the amount of research, knowledge, and work goes into a single nickname. It’s proportionately similar to a car maker doing market tests before they give a new car name the go ahead. If you think Stratus was a horrible name, just imagine what the ones that got denied were. Regardless, the nicking of names has become an integral part of my life and will continue to be so. As long as there are Cubers, there will be nicknames. And as long as there are nicknames, there will be stories.