Time To Pull Out The Get-Off-My-Lawn Voice

In Latvia, we don’t have Social Security Numbers, but each citizen is assigned a Person Identity Number which is used to uniquely identify people. It’s an eleven-digit number and it used to be that the first six digits represented the birth date. With the advent of privacy laws, however, a few years back, it was changed to contain just random digits, and anybody who wants can change theirs ONCE to the new version. A colleague of mine has done this.

Recently, [Colleague] had trouble with her Internet connection and decided to switch from mobile Internet to cable. She filled out the online form, and today they called her back.

Representative: “Hello. Can I speak to [Colleague], please?”

Colleague: “Hello! Yes, I’m [Colleague].”

Representative: “I’m sure you’re not. I can tell by your voice.”

Colleague: “What? What’s wrong with my voice?”

Representative: “Stop fooling around! Either give me [Colleague] or I will terminate this call!”

Colleague: “I’m not even your client yet. How can you possibly know my voice?!”

There’s a long pause, and then the representative proceeds sheepishly.

Representative: “Oh, you have the new person number. I only looked at the year digits and thought you were eighty-nine.”

My colleague — who is in her early thirties — also shared that she managed to get vaccinated early because seniors were a prioritized group.