The Mike Show: Episode 5 - My Name Is John, I Think

It's time for the fifth installment of The Mike Show. This is the segment of this blog where one can read actual dialog from my past.

Today we go back to 1976. This story is going to sound like I'm trying to be funny, but I assure you, I'm not. What you are about to read actually happened. It might sound like a bad Abbott and Costello routine, but it's all true.

I got a job working the graveyard shift at Kraft Foods. We had to wear uniforms with name tags. Now my legal name is John, not Mike. (It's a long story, not worth explaining) Anyway, I tried to tell my supervisor that even though my legal name is John, I would like to be called Mike. So we went to get name tags and this is what happened.

SUPERVISOR: This is John, but he want's to be called Ron.

MIKE: What?

NAME TAG GUY: I don't have any Ron name tags.

MIKE: I'll just take John.

(Later, when my supervisor introduced me to my co-worker)

SUPERVISOR: This is Ron.

CO-WORKER: Nice to meet you Don.

I later ran into a guy that I went to high school with and he knew me as Mike, so for four years everyone called me John, except my supervisor who called me Ron, the guy I worked with my first night who called my Don and the guy I went to high school with who called me Mike. So depending on who I was with, for four years I answered to John, Ron, Don and Mike

True story.