#5 Lame email/lame screen name
In 4th grade my friends and I were doodling our names on the chalkboard in our Hebrew School classroom before our teacher arrived. I was writing my full name really big and ran out of room midway through my last name. It was in that moment that I realized that I had “one of those last names”, you know the ones that if you’re not careful can be mispronounced or dissected into something crass or dirty.
I’m proud to say that I somehow managed to navigate the murky waters of grade school teasing and I only occasionally have to correct people of the pronunciation as an adult. And when it came time to selecting my first post-college Gmail address, the one that would be printed on every resume, the email address that would come up in all of my potential career opportunities I didn’t use some weird anagram or nickname; I used my full name even if when first read it brings on a middle school giggle. You know why? Because I am an adult (most of the time) and I function in the professional world (some of the time).
This is part of why someone chooses to have an unprofessional and inappropriate email address or it’s widely used companion the AIM screenname I consider it a deal breaker.
I mean really, at what point are you too old for inital_lastname_number of your favorite baller_name of favorite team@hotmail? When do you think it would be a good time to switch to an account name (at least for business and potential dates) that isn’t funnyFamilyGuyReference_YearYouGraduated@yahoo? You like Family Guy? Great! So do I. Let me read about it on your Facebook or Myspace page or tumblr. Having it as an email address just lets me know that you sir might be 27, but you are not a grown-up and probably aren’t ready for any kind of serious grown-up relationship.
And the screen name. Sigh. Look we all have the screen name that our friends from college and high school know us by. And while they’re 10 years old and lame it’s okay because the people who IM us there also know us as that version of ourselves from 10 years ago. But if 10 years ago your screen name was something like TiTzMcGee and you are still choosing to go by that name I’m sorry I might just have to block you.
