Assumptions.

Assumptions are sometimes an okay thing to make, but most of the time I think they can really get you into trouble.

Today a bunch of people at work went out to lunch for someone's birthday. I got seated at the end of the table with a guy I used to work more closely with in a customer service role. We had to help people at a help desk. We both work in other areas now so I don't see him very much. He's a pretty funny guy and I really like him. He's Asian and his name is Nguyen (pronunciation: Win). So one day long ago when we did work together, this professor come in and Nguyen is helping him and I'm just sitting there watching since I didn't have a customer. His problem wasn't hard to fix, but for a non-technical person like the professor, it was like a nightmare. So Nguyen got it all worked out for him.

Now, keep in mind these two had not introduced themselves.

The professor is so happy the problem was resolved so fast and so easily. He thanks Nguyen profusely. Only, he repeatedly called him Tran.

"Oh, Tran, thank you so much!"
"This is just great, Tran. I'm so happy!"
"Tran, you're just the best!"

Nguyen kept looking over at me when he'd call him Tran. By the 3rd time he did it, I just could not contain myself and had to look away so the professor would not see that I was about to burst out laughing. As soon as the professor was gone, we were laughing so hard we got headaches. Nguyen was insulted, yet he thought it was funny as hell. It's just one of those classic assumptions made about Asian people....that they are all named Tran.

So today we got to talking about "the good ole days" and that came up. We started laughing so hard we got headaches again :)