I started a new job on December 10th. It’s an office job in the healthcare field. I sit at a desk in a small, dark room with three other people. I’m on the phone for most of the day, but my job regularly requires me to get up and speak in person with doctors, medical assistants, and X-ray technicians. Sending emails to various people is also something I do regularly and to pretty much everyone. 

In my specific office location, there are 7 people who work administrative staff (including myself), 18 doctors (usually 3-4 working in the office at one time), about 15 medical assistants, and 5 X-ray techs. 

So it’s been over two months now that I’ve had regular interaction with every single person in the office. When I first came on, I had been the only new person they had hired for about a year.  I consider myself pretty extroverted and introduced myself at the very beginning to every new person I met. My emails that I send to people are also signed at the bottom with my name and position. 

So just the other day I’m sitting at my desk and one of the medical assistants who I literally talk to all the time comes in and hesitantly approaches me. “....what’s your name?” I tell her, and then just brush it off. A second time that same day, one of my other coworkers who I regularly even have lunch with and am constantly working alongside had to be corrected after calling me the wrong name (someone else corrected him). A third instance included a woman who legit introduced herself to me like she had just met me when I had been working with her for over a month. The doctor who obviously knows and remembers me who she works with looked at her like she was insane before just nodding at me saying, “how’s it going today?” 

These are just several examples, and yet this has been happening all the time, sometimes with the same people, sometimes different. I get that they are totally innocent mistakes, but I can’t help but be annoyed by it. 

I guess I kind of take pride in the fact that I’ve learned over 50 names in a short amount of time (that doesn’t include the people in our other clinic locations). I’ve always felt it’s an important thing to learn because it shows you care about that person, want to work with them, and reveals a certain level of maturity. I realize I’m also biased because I was previously a flight attendant for a major US airline for 3 years and the amount of names that you needed to learn on a daily basis was ridiculous, but helped me recognize the social importance and how it makes people feel.

Before flight attending, I had worked in the healthcare environment for 10 years at varying offices and never experienced this kind of struggle from coworkers before. 

So AITA for expecting my coworkers to know my name after two months? Is this a dumb thing to be annoyed about? 