I’m not sure I’ve ever sent out so many letters in one batch before, but this morning I sent letters to my credit card company, the Inland Revenue, the National Insurance Contributions Office, my electricity company, my gas supplier, my water/sewerage supplier, my mobile phone company, my telephone company, my ISP, the TV Licensing Authority, the local council, and the Electoral Office. And there’s still half a dozen other organisations who won’t accept a photocopy of a Deed Poll certificate without at least taking a peep at an original, and a couple of local people around Aber (my letting agency, doctor, etc.) that I’ll just call by at lunchtime.
For those of you who plan to change your name at some point during your life – I’m looking in particular at Ruth, Suz, Hayley, etc. – here’s a tip: mail merge is your friend. Start by making a list of all the addresses you need to inform, and have your favourite word processor generate a template letter, then manually adjust the ones that need tweaking (to put account numbers on some or to make special requests on others). It won’t save a lot of time, but it’ll make you feel better about the whole thing.
A civil servant friend informs me that the Tax Credits database isn’t capable of storing surnames of only one character. I’ve no intention of needing to be on the Tax Credits database, but it’s an interesting point for database developers anyway.
Right; I’m feeling productive – better get back to work before the feeling passes.
“A civil servant friend informs me that the Tax Credits database isn’t capable of storing surnames of only one character.”
So what, hypothetically, the fuck are you supposed to do if you have one?
My suggestion, if they’re not willing to compromise (“Q-space-space-space” or whatever), would be to whack them with discrimination law. As a govt. department, they’ll probably pull their collective fingers out pretty damn quick in the face of a discrimination lawsuit. Companies might be harder to deal with, of course. Haven’t come accross one, yet, that’s problematic, but we’ll see.
I used to know someone with a two letter surname, ‘Ng’. Would they be okay with that? It’s pretty unusual to have so few, but it’s very sloppy of them not to make allowances for variation.