I am responsible for many things in my current job.
I was hired for one job two years ago, and then last September, I was "promoted" to take on a different role.
While I have the responsibilities tied to this new "position," I am also responsible for a few other things, including Unclaimed Property.
For those unfamiliar with that term, when you work for a company and do not cash/deposit your paychecks, those companies are required to report those checks to their respective states as Unclaimed Property.
Those employees are then responsible for going through the states' procedures to claim their property.
Before we report their checks to the state, we send Due Diligence letters to the employees to let them know that they have a check (or more than one. Sometimes more than ten) that they have yet to receive or cash/deposit. So with that notice, we are giving them sixty days to have their check(s) reissued.
But they have to complete, sign, and return those letters to us for our records before we request Payroll to reissue those checks.
I know many of you have lots of questions.
Trust me. I've asked those same questions myself.
"Why would people not cash/deposit their paychecks right then??"
"How do you just go without cashing checks!?"
"WHY do people have thousands of dollars worth of checks uncashed!?!"
Trust me. I know.
It makes no sense.
What's frustrating about this particular job, aside from the fact that it is idiotic, is that many people cannot follow simple instructions.
These letters we send tell them how long they have to return it to us, what they’re supposed to complete and sign, and how/where they can return it.
My name is signed at the bottom, along with my contact information.
So if they get the letter and have questions about it, they call me.
45% of the calls I field are people who ask, "What is this??"
Most of the time those calls are reasonable because people don't even realize they were supposed to receive a check (i.e., a bonus check).
Some of them want to ensure it’s legitimate, which I also understand.
The other 50% of the calls are from people who are illiterate and incompetent because the letter (and my voicemail on my phone) gives specific details as to how to return that letter to me (either by USPS mail or email).
These people usually ask stupid questions like, “What do I sign?” [the blanks in the middle of the letter]. “Where do I mail it?” [the address listed at the bottom]. “How do I mail it? Do I have to put it in an envelope and address it?” [No, shove it up your butt, fart three times, and pray it gets here dummy. I mean, my gawd].
My followers on Instagram have heard many of my stories of the morons I have had to deal with.
Just the other day, someone called me and asked, "How do I email the physical copy of this letter to you?"
It’s 2023. How do we not know this by now??
And guys, she was younger than me—# YOUTHS.
Don't even get me started on the state of some of the letters I've received in the mail.
I got one in the mail without any postage, even though the post office stamped it with the "Return to Sender: No Postage" #USPSsucks.
My stories of dealing with Unclaimed Property could be a blog in and of itself.
The other 5% of phone calls I receive are belligerent, combative, and …. stupid.
But those are very sporadic.
And, guys, I'm a veteran teacher.
I've dealt with belligerent parents.
This ain't new to me.
But I received a phone call this week that was a game-changer.
On Monday, a woman called me.
I never answer my phone because my voicemail has specific directions as to what these people need to do if they get a letter.
People often listen to it, and I don't have to call them back.
But there are always idiots who don't.
This particular woman listened to my voicemail and left the following message:
"Hello, this is Jennifer — — I got a letter about some Unclaimed Property, and if this is the tax department, cause your name doesn't sound legit, I need you to call me back."
I listened to that voicemail two times to make sure I heard her correctly.
It made me feel something.
Not sure what. But it was something.
I called her back, left a voicemail, and went home for the day.
I came home and told my sister about her message, and my sister was irritated.
I was, too, but honestly, I couldn't quite understand why.
The woman returned my call on Wednesday at 4:27 (I get off work at 4:30, so I sure did watch as that phone rang).
She lives in California.
I was well aware of that on Thursday morning.
But, unfortunately for her, I had been sitting in these "feelings" for two days….
And the one thing therapy has been doing to me this time around, unlike all the previous times, is make me very, very aware of my feelings.
That, coupled with the fact that I'm PETTY AF, didn't bode well for her.
So, Thursday morning, I decided to return her phone call.
At 9:30 a.m. CST.
Which means it was 7:30 a.m. PST.
I was very aware that I was gonna WAKE. HER. ASS. UP.
She answered her phone, clearly in the middle of a DEEP sleep.
IDGAF.
Once she "came to," she started going on a tirade about how she didn't believe I was calling from the tax department of this company.
She couldn't understand why I was even the one dealing with her paychecks.
She told me she couldn't understand why the check couldn't just be sent to her manager like all her other checks.
She wasn't going to sign something when I, via this company, already had her SSN and all her information, so there was no reason for her to have to sign something else.
She told me she refused to sign the letter and that I could report it to the state of California.
In that same breath, she demanded that she wanted her money because she was poor and on disability and had already had to sign her name to a bunch of paperwork already, and she wasn't going to do it anymore.
Then she said, “It’s just $96 — that’s not as important to me as my well-being.”
[Narrator: Wait….I thought she said she was poor?]
I calmly repeated what I had been telling her the whole time: all I was responsible for was requesting that her check be reissued to her, and I could only do that if she signed and returned the letter for our records.
That didn't appease her, so I told her that I would give her the number for Payroll, and she could contact them to discuss her issues with her paychecks.
After she heaved herself out of her bed (literally, because I heard herself do so), she fumbled around for a paper, took down the number I gave (because I wasn't going to expend more precious energy to transfer her myself), and then she said, "If they send me back to you, I'll have to sign that letter right?"
I said, "Yes. If they send you back to me, I'm going to tell you the same thing I've already said — if you want your check reissued to you, you will need to complete, sign, and return the letter to us".
Then she said, as she fumbled for some paper, “You’re in Oklahoma, right? You woke me up [I just said, ‘Yup!’]. I don’t even know …. because there have been so many changes with Oklahoma and California.”
WTF was this crackhead talking about!?
With that, I hung up.
I emailed my colleagues in Payroll to inform them that this wackadoodle would call them, explained her issue, and warned them that she was combative.
A colleague in Payroll and I emailed back and forth about her, and she told me she would let me know how the call went.
A little while later, the colleague emailed me back.
This was her exact email, verbatim:
"I just called her. I got the same thing you were getting, but since I'm CLEARLY from Oklahoma (her words, my accent), and we share a birthday, she trusts me and will sign the letter and send it back."
WHAT.
THE.
F*CK.
If you missed the f*ckery and need a second to reread it, I'll wait….
…..
DID YOU SEE IT?!
THE F*CK!?!
So, this….this RACIST THING … not only did not trust the legitimacy of a letter she received with the company's name/logo EMBLAZONED across the top or in the voicemail of the phone number SHE called….because of the FOREIGN name that it was signed by….
But also didn't trust me because I don't speak with a HICK, COUNTRY accent — which only reaffirmed for her that I wasn't legitimately in Oklahoma or working for this company.
If you've ever heard me speak, you'll know I do not have any accent. I've been told I sound like a New Yorker. I've been told I sound completely "white." But I've never been told I have an accent.
I immediately told my supervisor, who was stunned. She thought I had made it up.
I told my coworker, who was very mad.
I told my manager, who determined this woman was incompetent and paranoid, and advised me on how to handle calls from employees in the future.
After I told them, I spent the rest of my day thinking….
and remembering….
and thinking….
AND THINKING.
I called my sister on my way home, and she reacted how I expected her to.
SPEECHLESS.
For two days, I tried to figure out what I felt and WHY I felt it because I had no words.
For the life of me, I could not figure it out.
It wasn't rage. It wasn't fury or anger.
But it was SOMETHING.
While processing it all, I remembered instances where my name had always made me feel…..different.
…and sometimes ashamed.
In 4th grade, I got an award at a school assembly, and I remember how proud I was to get it.
At the assembly, the music teacher read off the names of the students who won an award and read mine.
I was seated with my class and stood up as he read it.
I couldn't remember if he mispronounced my name or made some joke about it; all I remember was that he started laughing….
And so did the whole school.
I was standing in the middle of the gym, with all my classmates and teachers seated/standing around me….filled with embarrassment.
I went home upset and told my parents.
My dad came to school the next day and spoke to the teacher.
The music teacher came by my classroom later, kneeled beside my desk, apologized, and inexplicably gave me a banana.
It's the one time in my life that my dad came to my defense….
Because my NAME….which was half HIS name….was being disrespected.
As a teenager and a college student, I never felt pride in my name.
I hated having to correct the teachers/professors.
When they'd take attendance on the first day of class, without fail, they would always stop, and I would instinctively know they were at my name.
Instead of TRYING to pronounce it, they'd stare at it, and I would begrudgingly raise my hand and say, "Here.." and then pronounce my name for them.
I would slink down in my seat because I hated that everyone was looking at me and probably making fun of me.
Embarrassing AF.
After I graduated from college, I went a year without a job.
No one would interview me or hire me.
I went to job fairs, applied online, substituted constantly, and gave resumes to school principals.
Nothing.
I got my first interview in August 2017 thanks to a reference from a teacher at the school who knew me.
At the end of that interview, the principal said, "I'm not sure why you haven't got any interviews or offers. I guess it may be because principals see your name and don't want to hire you because your name is so hard."
I remember looking at her, a little dumbfounded that it could even be possible.
After offering me the job, she advised that I go by "Miss K" so the kids wouldn't struggle to pronounce my last name.
And I willingly obliged.
I was just grateful to have a job, so I wasn’t going to fight it.
After a few years, for no real reason, I stopped going by “Miss K” and started requiring students to call me by my full last name.
I taught them how to sound it out and say it.
And, let me tell you, my first graders, second graders, third graders, and later, fifth graders said my name like flowing water.
When my students heard other adults mispronouncing my name, they would always correct them.
They would even get annoyed when my name was mispronounced because they couldn't understand how they could mess up something so simple.
(Note: just sound it out.)
Just so you know, when I became a teacher myself before taking attendance, I would tell my students every year, "My name is a little difficult to say, and I know how I feel when someone mispronounces my name. But my name is also very special to me, just like yours is to you, so if I come to your name and I don't say it correctly, please tell me how you want me to say it exactly."
I remembered these moments in my life, and I spent that day with my wheels spinning in my head, all because this [clearly racist] woman made an implication about me…based on my name.
Truth be told, it wouldn't have fazed me if this had happened 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
Because I've never felt tied to my name.
For most of my life, I have felt so disconnected from who I really am, so it’s no wonder that I had no real ties to my name.
I would always say that if I got married, I wanted to marry someone with the last name Smith so I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.
The older I've become, the more I have come to appreciate the uniqueness of my name and that my sister and I are the only ones with this as our legal last name.
But, as much as I appreciated my name, I did not OWN it.
It didn't feel like it was MINE.
Or that it was ME.
Because let's be honest….
The real problem here, is that I don’t know who I am.
I have always felt disconnected between who others have told me to be or forced me to be versus who I truly am.
And the longer I have spent in those boxes that have been created for me, the more and more I have lost sight of who I am.
In fact, I don't think I have ever been given a chance to discover who I really am.
So now, here I am, almost 40, and I am trying hard to find out who I REALLY am.
And whatever I felt that day because of this woman — this nobody — was because she was judging me and basing my value, legitimacy, and worth on MY NAME.
But MY NAME is MINE.
It's the ONE thing I own.
MY NAME is WHO I AM.
I decided that day that NO ONE would ever make me feel ANY WAY because of my name.
I am staking my claim: THIS is MY NAME.
When a baby is born, it has no identity until it is NAMED.
I feel like I have been a baby living without a name.
Until now.
Declaring my name feels like a pivotal, decisive moment for me —
— a first step towards defining my identity on my own.
It reminds me of when God, after wrestling with him, changed Joseph's name to Israel (Genesis 32, for reference).
The minute he became Israel, his world turned upside down for the better.
This exchange with this woman wasn't just coincidental.
It was meant to happen.
I believe God was telling me… "You're ready to learn about who you really are. But first, LET ME TELL YOU YOUR NAME."
My story can finally begin….because now I know MY NAME.
