The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Somehow when I joined my firm this summer I got put into their system as Catherine. That's ok to some degree – for official stuff like taxes I use the formal name. But historically I've hated being called it. It's too formal, and I'm not a formal person. (Plus once I drew my line in the sand – "Don't call me Catherine!" – I had to stick to my guns...)

But I ended up in the Exchange server as Catherine, so all my emails go out that way. Which means that everyone now calls me Catherine. All the time.

I probably should have said something about it earlier. I thought that if I just signed my emails "Cathy" people would switch. But that doesn't seem to have been the case. And the people who first got to know me as Catherine are now introducing me to others the same way. It looks like if I want to go back to being a Cathy I'll need to retrain the entire firm! I should have cracked down when it was still only a few people... But I didn't – it just seemed too awkward to correct people – and now I seem to be stuck.

But maybe part of the reason I didn't make the effort to change my name even in Exchange was because I was curious to try it out. I've never been a Catherine; I've always been a Cathy. But now that I'm spreading into law stuff, which itself can be very formal, I find myself using it more often (I signed my moot court brief that way, for instance). But so far only in writings. This is the first time where I've used it in conversation. Which concerns me unto itself – I'm afraid I'll accidentally ignore people who use it because I'm not used to conditioned to respond to it.

Except, of course, when I'm in BIG trouble and Catherine Rachel had better get down here RIGHT NOW...