All the way with Laura J

For the first time in my working career, I work in a company that has employed somebody with exactly the same name. Now, I realise that Laura and Ryan are fairly common names, but it still feels kind of weird… and something that the company IT people had trouble dealing with.

Originally they came up with the strangest email address for me here at work – some mutation of my first name followed by my last name and some numbers. It was so stupid I’ve managed to forget it already (usually company emails are first and last names so people can remember them). I’m now referred to by my first initials followed by my last name. Not perfect but it works. However, this didn’t solve the problem of the company address book…

No matter what your email address, the company on-line directory only uses first and last names. Now two Laura Ryan’s – while sounding like a wonderful thing – was just plain confusing – so as a method of differentiating between the two, I suggested adding my middle initial to my listing (seeing as my email address already used my initials) and leave the existing Laura listed, untouched.
Problem solved was also problem created. Problem created in the way of my very intelligent, but slightly eccentric boss. He started referring to me as ‘Laura J’ instead of just Laura. Which isn’t a problem in itself, until he decided that the sound of ‘Laura J’ sounded a lot like LBJ, and I quote, "wasn’t there a slogan in the States that went something along the lines of "All the way with LBJ"?"

Well, first off – I’m not American. But more importantly, having my boss going around singing "all the way with Laura J" in a male-dominated environment might potentially further my career, but not in a manner I’d like…..

For a bright guy, he can sometimes be really stupid.