Scarlet_Buckeye;1739940 wrote:Exceptions, not norms.

In my personal experience, a "Mike Jones" would be a helluva lot better than a "ICantEvenPronounceYourName" candidate. For every "Sergey Brin or Azim Premji" you can give me, I can just as easily turn around and give you a "Bill Gates", "Donald Trump", "Warren Buffet", "Steve Jobs", "Tim Cook", "Jake Welch", etc.

That may be true, but a person's own aptitude for pronunciation is hardly more than a superfluous and subjective reason to shuffle someone under someone else. And everyone we've mentioned with specificity in the last couple posts is the exception, and not the norm. That's why they are (or were) all billionaires.

Why potentially overlook someone exceptional for such a superfluous reason? It's hardly unprofessional to ask how to pronounce something properly.

Al Bundy;1739715 wrote:If it was in Ohio, an employer does not have to give any reason to an employee for termination.

Wasn't in Ohio. It was in Alabama. We don't know laws there. Sucks because the VP was a dick for no reason.

O-Trap;1740114 wrote:That may be true, but a person's own aptitude for pronunciation is hardly more than a superfluous and subjective reason to shuffle someone under someone else. And everyone we've mentioned with specificity in the last couple posts is the exception, and not the norm. That's why they are (or were) all billionaires.

Why potentially overlook someone exceptional for such a superfluous reason? It's hardly unprofessional to ask how to pronounce something properly.

Not really. I may take a lot of shit for this, but I'd rather work with an American than some foreigner who - if I can't pronounce his/her name - I'm probably going to have a harder time understanding them. Why do you think all these call centers give their staff "American sounding names" like "James" when their real names are like "Sanja".

It's a matter of risk/reward. I would gladly accept a lower risk (i.e., hiring an American sounding name) than risk hiring some foreign sounding name (that runs a higher risk of not being able to communicate effectively with).

Again... I don't have to ask them how to pronounce it... If *I* can't read it and pronounce it myself, then I know there's a pretty good chance we're getting off to a bad start and there's a decent chance we're going to have communication issues.

Scarlet_Buckeye;1740165 wrote:Not really. I may take a lot of shit for this, but I'd rather work with an American than some foreigner who - if I can't pronounce his/her name - I'm probably going to have a harder time understanding them. Why do you think all these call centers give their staff "American sounding names" like "James" when their real names are like "Sanja".

It's a matter of risk/reward. I would gladly accept a lower risk (i.e., hiring an American sounding name) than risk hiring some foreign sounding name (that runs a higher risk of not being able to communicate effectively with).

Again... I don't have to ask them how to pronounce it... If *I* can't read it and pronounce it myself, then I know there's a pretty good chance we're getting off to a bad start and there's a decent chance we're going to have communication issues.

I would agree with your notion that having difficulty understanding someone would most certainly be counter-productive. However, having a name that appears difficult to pronounce doesn't necessitate that the person is a foreigner, and even if he/she is, it doesn't preclude them from being able to speak competent English without an accent.

For example, I've worked with three different people who were born in South Africa. All three have moved to the US. Two of them have names I mispronounced when I first met them. All three spoke competent English (two of them spoke it better than most Americans I know), and none of them had much of an accent (one sounded a little European ... maybe French ... but it was faint).

Now, if they'd shown up speaking (and/or understanding) English at an incompetent level, that would have been bad for business, but given the diversity that exists within the US, and given the number of people who maintain elements of their ethnic origins, it's not unreasonable to even find a US citizen, born and raised, with a name that sounds as though it originated in a country that speaks a vastly different language.

If it were a more necessary decision to make early on, I could see it as a necessary evil, but again, it seems superfluous to make a judgment about a person's competence or business acumen based solely on a name their parents gave them at birth.

OSH;1740126 wrote:Wasn't in Ohio. It was in Alabama. We don't know laws there. Sucks because the VP was a dick for no reason.

I believe every state is now an At-Will employement state meaning you can be fired without any reason.
Now most states have expemtions to this. Public Policy Expemtion is the only one I know about(Alabama doesn't have it) besides the normal can't be fired due to Race, Age, Gender, etc.

If you don't mind sharing where at in Alabama and for what company did your friend work at?

OSH;1740126 wrote:Wasn't in Ohio. It was in Alabama. We don't know laws there. Sucks because the VP was a dick for no reason.

49 of the 50 states recognize the concept of at-will employment. Montana is the exception under some circumstances.

O-Trap;1740207 wrote:I would agree with your notion that having difficulty understanding someone would most certainly be counter-productive. However, having a name that appears difficult to pronounce doesn't necessitate that the person is a foreigner, and even if he/she is, it doesn't preclude them from being able to speak competent English without an accent.

For example, I've worked with three different people who were born in South Africa. All three have moved to the US. Two of them have names I mispronounced when I first met them. All three spoke competent English (two of them spoke it better than most Americans I know), and none of them had much of an accent (one sounded a little European ... maybe French ... but it was faint).

Now, if they'd shown up speaking (and/or understanding) English at an incompetent level, that would have been bad for business, but given the diversity that exists within the US, and given the number of people who maintain elements of their ethnic origins, it's not unreasonable to even find a US citizen, born and raised, with a name that sounds as though it originated in a country that speaks a vastly different language.

If it were a more necessary decision to make early on, I could see it as a necessary evil, but again, it seems superfluous to make a judgment about a person's competence or business acumen based solely on a name their parents gave them at birth.

No, you're absolutely right, having a name in-and-of-itself does not necessitate a person being foreign or one's ability to understand them... but again... those are the exceptions, not the norm. The norm is more like the average, and the average more-often-than-not is if you see a name you can hardly pronounce yourself, you're probably going to have a difficult time understanding them.

Hence why I would rather work with "Matt" than "Gupta".

Scarlet_Buckeye;1740263 wrote:No, you're absolutely right, having a name in-and-of-itself does not necessitate a person being foreign or one's ability to understand them... but again... those are the exceptions, not the norm. The norm is more like the average, and the average more-often-than-not is if you see a name you can hardly pronounce yourself, you're probably going to have a difficult time understanding them.

Hence why I would rather work with "Matt" than "Gupta".

I don't know that we can know this. We may all have anecdotes, but I'd be interested in seeing these numbers crunched, as I've yet to see it play out.

Again, I don't necessarily think you're wrong that the majority of people who have non-native-sounding names might present an additional difficulty. I'm just not convinced that sorting them that way saves anyone enough time to warrant risking losing out on someone who may very well be competent.

I work with many Indians and at first I kind of looked down on them and thought they were just doing busy work, but I've come to realize most of them (especially if they were able to make it to the states) are very very smart.

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