You say tomater, I say tomatermorts

Ok, pretend you've never met the following individuals, you are about to call them, and you need to pronounce their names right. Ready, go:


Tonie

Sonae

Lakecia

Sotheavy

Genoveva

Chyr

These are some names I've had come through recently on resumes. Thanks to telemarketing the vast majority of Americans are immediately suspicious of any caller who doesn't know how to pronounce their name and are liable to hang-up/chew you out if you get it wrong, so when I call to set up an interview I have to be careful (though it is fun to hear the reaction of someone who has just chewed you out when you tell them you're an employer calling about their resume.)

And playing the last-name-interchange gambit (i.e. calling Adriexxahnnah Johnson's number and asking for 'Ms. Johnson' rather than 'Adriexxahnnah') is usually no good, as 1)you still sound like a telemarketer, and 2) you are likely to get the gender wrong (I just had interviews with a Cheyenne and a Kelcey, both of whom were men.)

I usually just resort to the mumbled name approximation, which hasn't failed me yet: 'Hi, is Pa(mumble over hard part)rigahah there?'

There you go. Another installment of Adventures in HR.