Names

One of my ongoing big pet peeves is a work peeve having to do with people who have a given 1st and last name, but insist on going by something utterly different. I'm not griping about the Timothy/Tim(my)s or the James/Jims. I can figure those out. But when you are Frank Tobias Smith, so all our HR paperwork will have you as Frank Smith, but you go by Toby or worse Bucky Smith? That's a problem to me. I'm supposed to figure out who you are from that? Once upon a time at Homestore, there was an employee who insisted on going by his 1st (which was actually an unusual nick name of his given 1st name) and middle name. I told him that's fine but your official paperwork will have your given 1st and last name. He did not like this and went over my head. I replied to my boss, that what we use in HR is their given names, and that I had already explained this to him. My boss of the time (not CB), in a rare move, backed me up. So during his entire tenure there, which I unsurprisingly outlasted, we would get questions or someone in HR would need to know who he is and they would ask me. Who is this guy, does he work for us? And I would have to give them his real name. Now because I was at the 'store for all of 3 years, and all the new hires eventually came past my desk, I knew all the names that were like that that I needed to know. Now that I'm new here at the U, I don't know them so I have to spend time matching up SSN's to our database (which unfortunately the person before didn't have the same strictness to proper names that I do so sometimes it is the given name and sometimes it is the nick name causing me even more confusion). Just go by the names your good folks gave you people. (As I write this, though, I do realize that my own best friend does not go by his given name, however he has enough sense to use said given name at work and just goes by the nick name of his 2nd middle name in social situations). People who get married do not count in this rage.