Chris Crossed

This story reminded me of a joking coworker of my own.

I am a woman, but I go by Chris. I don’t mind being called Chris or my full name, but I don’t answer to other variations. In particular, I hate being called “Chrissy” since I was a blond kid growing up when the show Three’s Company was on, and I got teased a lot because of that character.

Fast forward to me working at a small startup as an adult. We were a tight-knit group, and we did tease each other in good fun. There was one guy on the team who, when he discovered that I hated being called Chrissy, would often call me that just to get me riled up. It was very annoying, but I knew it wasn’t mean-spirited, so I put up with it for a while.

One day, I realized that I was going about things the wrong way, since people usually called me when they needed help with something. So the next time he called, the conversation went like this:

Guy: “Hey, Chrissy!”

Me: *Instantly hung up the phone.*

Guy: *Calls back a couple of minutes later.* “Hey Chris!”

Me: “Hi, [Guy]! What can I do for you?”

He tried calling me Chrissy only once or twice more and got the same response each time. Worked like a charm!