What kind of fucking goof goes around punching people?
What do they want?
(I know this is disqualified as corporate-speak for being plain English)
I use “y’all” all the time, and I won’t stop just because you think it’s inappropriate. In Texas it is definitely NOT a non-word. So there. 
Fortunately, your post doesn’t count as an email, so I’m not having a stroke.
What I see all the time, and what makes me nuts, is the use of “y’all” in business email by people who have only the most tenuous, if any, connection with the South. Like maybe the user went to law school in Austin, for example, even though they’re from, say, Highland Park, outside of Chicago.
Oddly, those who use “y’all” in email are exclusively young white women. It seems to be coming into fashion. That’s in my experience, of course, which is limited (when it comes to business email) to American mega-law firms (i.e., law firms with, let’s say, more than 2,000 lawyers).
It’s really annoying.
And I’d bet that even people who perfectly legitimately use, as a regionalism, “y’all” in day to day speech would agree that it’s not exactly appropriate in written business communication.
In a bit of the same vein, I get aggravated when people use the shortened version of my name in a business email, when I have not met them, nor have I, in any communication with them, used the shortened version. Sure people do use, for example, Andy instead of Andrew, but I would never presume to use that unless I saw them sign their email as Andy. Same is true with Bill, for William, or Rob for Robert. If you don’t know, don’t assume.
I also get emails addressed to me by my last name, from people who think it is my first name, but that one does not annoy me quite as much, though I often have to correct them when we end up in a phone call, and they address people by the first name, except me, because they though they knew.
//i\\
[hijack]The (then) girlfriend (now wife) of a friend of mine thought my last name was my first name because that’s how he always referred to me. She was bummed to find out the truth - she thought it made a great first name. Not great enough for them to name any of their kids that…[/hijack]
That happens to me all the time. Personally, it doesn’t bother me, but I’d agree that use of diminutives in business correspondence, even email, is in appropriate until a relationship is built and it’s clear that the person prefers the diminutive.
It drives my wife crazy, though. She has a very common (in the English-speaking world) first name, with a couple of diminutives in common use. Some people will, as you point out, go right to the diminutive, which is annoying enough, but in her case they invariably go to the wrong one, the one she doesn’t use among friends, colleagues and acquaintances.
There are no less than three people in my department with first and last names that are interchangeable (think, say, Michael George). It happens.
There’s also one person with the same first and last name (think Nguyen Nguyen), so he’s totally immunized against that kind of confusion.
So for him it’s a nguyen-nguyen situation.
I’m not sure if I would find it odd, to the point that I don’t remember seeing it or not seeing it recently. It wouldn’t aggravate the hell out of me, however. I think its useful for a language to have a second person plural form that is not so emphatic as “you all”, whether it be “y’all”, or “youse” or anything. If I saw “you all” I would read it more like “all a y’all”, emphasizing that it is referring to absolutely everyone in the group.
My SIL has the same issue. Plus they often pick a different, wrong spelling of that wrong diminutive, even though the correct spelling of that wrong diminutive is an equally common one.
If I don’t know a a fellow employee, I use their full first name as listed in the directory in my email. If I receive an email from someone, I look for their signoff for a clue and use that version of their name in my reply.
Or, you do something silly and ask them what they prefer - their full name or one of the nicknames. Especially appropriate in these days of EVERYONE working virtually. It’s much easier to figure these things out when you’re in the same location with small talk than it is when all you have is email communication.
If they work in my building, I usually either know them or know someone who knows them and has used their preferred name in conversation. But my company has about 80,000 employees across dozens of sites, and as you point out, asking someone by email what their preferred name is awkward at the very least (and what salutation do you use for the email asking?)
ETA: I always figure that if you use a nickname or alternative name, you’re used to getting emails using your legal name and know how to handle it gracefully.
I am kind of in the other boat. My parents gave me the short name because they figured it was what everyone would use. I rarely have a problem with people using the long version, although occasionally people will use the diminunitive of the short name (like that janitor guy in my grade school).
This, a thousand times this. I am PATRICK. I am not PAT. I do not go by PAT. I have NEVER gone by PAT. I will NEVER go by PAT. “Asshole” would be more acceptable to me than PAT.
I thought you were talking about C&H sugar. Pure cane sugar from Hawaaaaaiiii.
My younger sister’s name is like this, too. She hates all the diminutives of her name except the one she uses. And that one is not gender-specific. We bought a condo togther and bought a membership in the county museum. When the membership cards arrived, the names printed on them were Mr. and Mrs. sisters-nickname lastname. We LOL’d.
We have a related problem at my firm.
The firm has offices all around Asia.
In the offices in China, employees there will often use an English name as their first name. However, this isn’t official, it’s just something they go by. So if I have to contact someone known as, for example, Robert Zhang, there is a really good chance that there is no Robert Zhang in the firm directory. There may be several Zhangs, but no Robert Zhang. And I have no way of knowing that Mr. Zhang’s name as it appears in the firm directory is Wei Zhang, or possibly Zhang Wei.
I do not care at all what names people in the Asian offices choose to go by.
But consistency across the board in a very large firm seems like a good idea.
I’ve noticed that Chinese-Americans at the firm, whether they’re working in one of the Chinese offices or in the US, just go by their actual birth name. If their parents gave them an English name, that’s what they use, across the board. If their parents gave them a Chinese name, that’s what they use.
But in China, among Chinese-born and raised colleagues, they call themselves pretty much anything. And sometimes change the English names they use.
Okay, fine, who cares, but please, people, notify HR so they can update the firm directory.
An instant classic.