What are you famous for with one group, and infamous for with another? What is a blot on your permanent record that is a badge of honor with your friends?
This occurred to me last weekend when I realized that I am known by face, name and drink order at a very busy bar 240 miles from home, and have been for several years. The cocktail waitresses all call us by name and run over to hug us whenever we set foot in the place. Some would say this is a sure badge of alcoholism and degeneracy. Others would say it is a mark of distinction and recognition of our sheer wonderfulness.
I was once mentioned by name, in a derogatory way, in a fax from the Westboro Baptist Church. Only in the small print, mind you, a little minnow amongst big fish. This was years ago but I’m still proud of it!
My actual name is semi-well known in the profession in which I currently work, throughout my state and probably a bit beyond (maybe in some specific federal circles–it just got posted on a federal website, linked to some work I did recently). It’s primarily because of the email newsletters I send out on a monthly basis and some resources I’ve created. I encounter people face-to-face at professional events and when they see my name tag they almost always have the same reaction,“Oh, YOU’RE (fill in actual name)–I didn’t realize you were an actual person!”
I was pretty well known professionally as a fixer (of work problems and people issues) when I lived in Anchorage. I cleaned up some serious and endemic problems for several companies within the first six months of being hired.
The infamous? Well, I abruptly quit my last job and retired, rather than wait for the heart attack was was definitely in my future there. People seemed to be in awe of that for some reason.
When I was a TV news anchor, the prowling studio cat jumped up on the desk and strutted by while I was reading the late night news. Luckily, I had caught it out of the corner of my eye a few seconds before and anticipated the interruption, so I could calmly say “I’m doing my job here – go catch come mice.” There are probably people in Newfoundland who still remember that, now 45 years ago…
It’s the lastname Makes you sound like an institution!
I became infamous as the person who introduced my brothers, and through them our hometown, to pen and paper RPGs. As the parents of those kids realized that their children were motivated to learn English* and to read** thanks to the same games producing all those yells of “yesss! Eat shit you damned orc!”, I became famous for the same reason.
most materials were in English
** manuals and background materials mostly, but for example the first non-school-book my brother Jay read was The Hobbit, followed in quick succession by Neverending Story and LotR. He might still not have grabbed a novel if it hadn’t been for the orcs and for those friends who’d answer his questions of “who’s that?” with “you’ve got the books at home, read them!”
Back in the early 1980s I was one of a two person installation team for some publishing equipment at Time Incorporated in NYC. There was a Time Inc. V.P. in charge of the project from their side. Near the end of the month long install some problem arose that my coworker and I determined was largly due to the Time Inc. production workflow. We duly informed the V.P. of our findings at a sparsely attended meeting. The V.P. pretty much went ballistic and accused us of trying to deflect blame, deny our responsibility, yada yada.
– INFAMOUS – We completed the install, returned to the home office in California, and were promptly reprimanded for our failure to just suck it up and kowtow to the customer. So now we’re in the doghouse.
– NOT YET – A week or so later my boss (also a V.P.) showed the two of us a letter written by the Time Inc. production manager in charge of the now operational system. The production manager described the system in glowing terms.
– FAMOUS – The production manager wrapped up the letter by thanking my coworker and I for reporting the production workflow issue to the V.P. It seems the production manager and crew had been trying to change the workflow for months but the knucklehead V.P. wouldn’t allow it until we basically told him that the old workflow sucked.
P.S. We were still in the doghouse for our failure to suck it up. But we felt better knowing that the Time Inc. production folks considered us their saviors.
Makes you sound like an institution!