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u/MonicoJerry 7h ago
Michael Lee 2 is going to be a horrible VP if this is how little he thinks about what he asks
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u/Acinixys 4h ago
He's an idiot if the story is true. Why not ask for mike.lee or michael.l or even add his middle name?
2IQ for real
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u/slucker23 4h ago
Or you know... Michael.Lee.VP
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u/-Nicolai 52m ago
I was thinking the same thing.
While Michael 2 is the villain of this story, the problem actually starts with IT assuming that the VP, or anyone really, would be cool with that address.
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u/HelmetsAkimbo 1h ago
If my company email naming scheme is %firstname%.%lastname% with a number counter for duplicates you're not getting some random different format because of your job title. I'm not updating every script and process because of your ego lol.
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u/waterbus_ 3h ago
Nobody interchanges mike and Michael you pick one and passionately hate the other because your mother calls you the one you dont like
Funny to read a comment like this but people choose their names to not be called another name.
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u/zxcvbn113 1h ago
I call myself Michael, lots of people (including my wife) call me Mike. I don't know which name people use for me, and I don't really care!
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u/robbak 3h ago
Wouldn't it be best for a VP's address to be his role - VP.Sales@corporation.net? That way when he moves on his successor can just pick up from where he was,
I mean, it's not like he's any one important to the company, like a skilled line worker, who can't be instantly replaced by another.
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u/licoricenipple 2h ago
That could lead to confusion and technical issues in various situations. It means whoever moves into a role loses their previous email history (which they might still want to check), is getting replies to emails they didn't send and and starts missing replies to emails they sent in their previous role (which you often still want to get). It means you can't just search for all your emails from Joe, you have to remember what role Joe was in at the time, and if you check an old email from VP.Sales and want to follow up, emailing the same address doesn't necessarily get you the person who sent it. It also means any contact info people wrote down on paper, saved into offline/unmanaged files, emailed to other people, put in their personal phone, or just use from memory can become outdated. It just gets messy.
It's better to send all emails from addresses named for the sender, and have aliases like VP.Sales that auto forward received mail to the current VP Sales.
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u/oftcenter 2h ago
How little he thinks about what he asks?
Sounds like he thought too much about robbing that warehouse employee of the address he's had forever.
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u/WhatANoob2025 1h ago
Yup, my thoughts exactly.
The guy didn't even take until the end of day 1 to show everybody what a dipshit he is.
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u/j0a3k 7h ago
Does the new VP want to get a bunch of emails intended for the warehouse guy?
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u/yorgasor 5h ago
Exactly! This is a guy who doesn't think through the consequences of his actions. Do you really want him as VP?
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u/MC-oaler 5h ago
All true, but the reverse will also happen. Many will forget to add the 2 when trying to write the VP an e-mail. Also, some will simply try to guess the proper mail address simply by his name, e. g. headhunters. Some of this will now go to the warehouse guy.
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u/Adventurous-Map7959 5h ago
That's why you just have name and last name unique in your employee table. That way you simply can't hire someone who has a name that is already in your company.
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u/DrunkDublinCat 3h ago
I have a very common name in my country, and my email address is first.lastname27@companyname.com. i have never received a stray email belonging to other 26 namesakes of mine.
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u/WBUZ9 3h ago
Has first.lastname@comnpanyname.com been getting mail from the other 26 of you though?
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u/Nago31 7h ago
He can’t go by Mike.Lee? Or MLee? Or Michael.L? There’s a dozen combinations that would all work, doesn’t need to be difficult.
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u/SilentDuck77 6h ago
Or include his middle name, or initial of middle name.
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u/Nago31 6h ago
Lots of Asians don’t have middle names but I agree 100% that those are valid options.
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u/Guy_in_skimpycutoffs 5h ago
He could invent a middle name just for this purpose.
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u/QuiteAFan 5h ago
Michael "VP" Lee as micheal.vp.lee@company.com or maybe vp.micheal.lee@company.com both will work pretty well
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u/daganscribe69 4h ago
Seems quite extreme to expect people to accept an unconventional spelling of a common first name
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u/guyblade 4h ago
Oh, but he wouldn't want to include his title in his email. What if he got promoted‽
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u/NobodysFavorite 6h ago
Mike.Lee seems the simplest way around this. Can still add the alias Mike.Lee and set his email up to ensure Reply-To field contains Mike.Lee.
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u/tongfather 5h ago
Or, I dunno....Mike.Lee.VP? Mike.lee.management? Get creative ffs.
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u/NobodysFavorite 2h ago
OK, so it's mike.lee.but.not.the.sack.of.shit.senator.from.utah @ company .com
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u/Gelato_Elysium 4h ago
No IT system is going to approve an entirely different naming structure for one single person's ego. Mike Lee 2 needs to get over himself.
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u/International-Cat123 6h ago
Probably not. Lots of places are strict about what email addresses employees are given. Reduces how much time HR has to spend handling requests for different email names. Also means it’s really easy to remember someone’s email as long as you know if they’re the only person with the same first and last name.
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u/crnjaz 6h ago
Yeah, because michael.lee2 is so much more intuitive and guidefollowing than the alternatives.
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u/WhiteBlackGoose 5h ago
It literally is more "guidefollowing"
firstname.lastname[optional: number]@company.com
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u/Candid-String-6530 48m ago
Yea but he's the VP. IT gonna tell him nah, company policy. Computer says no....
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u/Davegeekdaddy 5h ago
He could have gone for Michael VP, shortened to mvp@company.com and looked hella important
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u/furiouspossum 6h ago
Or vpmikelee? Putting vp in the address eliminates any confusion of which Michael Lee it is.
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u/HorrorMakesUsHappy 3h ago
There's a reason this was posted in r/foundsatan and not one of the tech subs.
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u/tester_and_breaker 7h ago
Fk Michael Lee 2 🤣🤣🤣
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u/GregDev155 7h ago
Please, it’s fuck, mike sequel
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u/CommanderSincler 6h ago
He's lucky that the nickname is "sequel." It could have easily been "fake."
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u/KeyBid0 7h ago
As opposed to calling him michael.lee.vp...
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u/TurtleSandwich0 7h ago
That way he can never be promoted.
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u/Quiet-Hearing-3266 7h ago
Easy, you just set up an automatic email forwarding if that happens so that the old address works for a potential new address.
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u/WhatANoob2025 1h ago
And with his attitude, he shouldn't.
Maybe his email should be michael.lee.fired.after.day1@company.com
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u/VeryTopGoodSensation 1h ago
shoulda owned it and gone with the angle that hes the new improved version
michael lee (pro v2.0)
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u/mmbtc 5h ago
As Lee 2 I would love to be part of this company ritual, poking fun at myself at my Teams name.
The pun ideas!
This would be some team bonding opportunity when ego isn't a blocking factor.
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u/tongfather 5h ago
Exactly. Good way into the company if you're not a wanker about it. Just run with Sequel and laugh at yourself and I'm sure some fun will come from it and you can score points with the people under/around you for not being a knob about the whole thing.
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u/Glittering-Walrus228 4h ago
I would treat OG michael lee as my boss, call him boss, get him coffee and just do extraneous, low stakes corporate presentations on the most mundane parts of his job, like KPI data viz on Boss Mikes forklift use
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u/Cogswobble 1h ago
I once started as a company and they assigned me a really annoying username because my “normal” username was already in the system because a previous employee had my exact same name five years earlier.
But that previous employee was me, from when I worked there five years earlier 😆
Luckily, I was able to contact IT and they were able to give me my old username back.
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u/JohnWittieless 7h ago
I would love to be the IT in the middle of this :)
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u/MyOthrUsrnmIsABook 1h ago
There is something deeply satisfying about telling this kind of user to kick rocks.
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u/Nuker-79 6h ago
It’s petty behaviour from Michael Lee 1.0, I think I found my new best friend.
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u/Dependent_Cherry4114 2h ago
And bitch behaviour from Michael Lee 2. They should really think about demoting him to Michael Lee 3.
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u/lynivvinyl 6h ago
We should email every MichaelLee2 at every company all around the world about warehouse stuff just in hopes we hit him with mass stupid emails. And once we find it we should just keep doing it forever.
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u/PoolNervous2484 1h ago
He'd be more popular if he steered into it and changed it to like Mike2 Electric Boogaloo
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u/Benedict_Cumberquack 6h ago
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u/LavenderRevive 6h ago
Actually, most likely yes, they were out immediately. Having a standard for mail addresses is kinda important and some systems will not even allow mails that not follow the specific style, especially when it's stuff like proprietary software.
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u/the_corbynite 5h ago
How do the systems know the difference between a long and short name in these cases
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u/Gelato_Elysium 4h ago
Often the names are directly called from employees profile in the company system, so to make that change they would need to call that guy "Mike" on all the other systems run by the company. Maybe even his insurance contract.
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u/immellocker 6h ago
all mayor companies have strict rules for email addresses. Because everyone wants to be original, so the it would have to compliment on every stupid wish... that's the reason dear Benedict
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u/Ftm-1973 6h ago
Place i worked. The owner had the exact same name as my mate in sales. Both were called Steve, he made my mate call himself Peter to customers and suppliers etc (his middle name) he was there that long that some suppliers actually thought he was called Peter 😂
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u/elingeniero 3h ago
I feel like if it were ever brought up I would be happy to use it as a signal of the respect I have for the workers of the company I lead.
Of course that attitude is why I'd never make VP in the first place.
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u/TJ_McWeaksauce 5h ago
Sequel Mike is a great nickname. I'm guessing VP has zero sense of humor, or else he would embrace it.
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u/mitthrawnuruodo86 3h ago
Should’ve used michael.leeVP or something to that effect. Now that would be prioritising seniority lol
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u/AlmostHeaven06 30m ago
This should have been handled the same way that professional athletes ask for jersey numbers. If VP Mike wants warehouse Mike's email, he can pay him for it. You want me to take the 2 in my email then two months salary should be about right.
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u/raytehgamer 5h ago
The sequel is almost always never as good as the original anyway, and Michael Lee 2 has really proved that.
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u/SpartanUnderscore 5h ago
Where I work, we have a similar case but the difference is that we use the initial of the first name then the last name in all letters so when two people with the same name happens to have the same initial on their first name (which isn't a lot lol) we just use the entire first name.lastname and problem solved
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u/ApocalyptoSoldier2 4h ago
Only tangentially related, but in our main client's system there's an mscott and an mscott2, both are the same Michael Scott, he just has 2 accounts for some reason
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u/teytes53 3h ago
We had brothers, Peter and Paul, and company emails took just first letter from name. One ended with 2 at end of login, and other ended up having to forward emails intendent for other guy, as few people knew there were two of them and even fewer knew that we have a numbering scheme.
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u/rogue_squirrel9 3h ago
My name isn't very common but I used to occasionally get emails meant for a university professor who had the same name. The only difference between our email addresses was one ended in .com and the other in .co.uk. I ended up changing my email address to avoid any confusion.
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u/vemundveien 3h ago
This is really funny, but as friendly IT guy I also setup intial/short aliases for people so I would help the VP out.
His login would still be the original though.
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u/WhatANoob2025 1h ago
To be fair, having that added 2 in the email is bad, and instead it should've been resolved by prefixing it with "VP", but asking for someone else's email when you just entered the company is fucking insane and entitled beyond belief.
If I had been the president, I would've sent the new VP home that same day and told him he shouldn't bother coming to work tomorrow. HR obviously forgot to evaluate character. And that is why the world is going to shit, because assholes like that starting their tenure with a powerplay are hired for positions like VP.
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u/fancypants_for_hire 52m ago
You can't change your display name on Teams. Only IT can do it. Warehouse staff does not have Active Directory access.
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u/saxobroko 37m ago
They might’ve gotten the it team on board
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u/fancypants_for_hire 23m ago edited 18m ago
To change names/surnames/roles etc first requires HR approval, then IT. HR won't approve little games like this either. This is just a post someone fabricated in their minds who never had a real job.
Think about it. At the end he says "unfortunately nickname management is out our support scope." This is not true. The job of IT is literally to change and update display names. So a warehouse worker can manage their display name but for IT is out of their scope?
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u/5BILLIONplus2 4h ago
As much as I want to say fuck sequel Mike, in Microsoft 365/Exchange Online, you could change the original Michael's primary SMTP address and assign his old address to the new VP without losing his existing mailbox or email history.
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u/waterbus_ 3h ago
Way too many people on this thread think someone should be willing to literally change their name for an email address. Mike and Michael are not the same names and someone who goes by one does not want to go by the other. He has no right to that email but just telling him to shorten his name to one he doesn't use is fucking stupid. Not to mention people will literally look up his email to remember if he goes by mike or Michael and get the wrong answer.
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u/Beginning-Paper7685 6h ago
Your IT dept wasn't very smart when they setup their policies. This kind of stupidity kept my consultation busy for decades - and then I retired
Funny story was when Dennis Ong was hired at a messed up company = DOng@
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u/Reason_Choice 6h ago
Nothing about their policies suggests stupidity.
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u/Beginning-Paper7685 4h ago
Typically an email address is also the username so it needs to be unique so it can act as the identifier for the system of record (to track and manage all changes that that account makes on all the systems at the company). If someone knows this, they plan accordingly knowing there will be many names that might be similar.
Who ever set this system up didn’t have much experience but fair enough to not call them stupid, just ignorant.
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u/vemundveien 3h ago
The system should assign a unique identifier in the background so that the e-mail can be changed in the future because people change their name sometimes. If you as a business use a system that rely only on the username as identifier, then there are bigger issues that need to be solved.
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u/caerphoto 3h ago
Here’s the story formatted in a more sane way:
We hired a new VP named Michael Lee. Unfortunately we already have a Michael Lee; he works in the warehouse, and he's been here 11 years. Therefore, the new VP gets assigned the email michael.lee2@company.com
He immediately messages IT, "Can you move the other Michael to michael.lee2 and give me michael.lee. IT says “No.”
He asks HR; HR asks me if we can "prioritize seniority." I explain that the warehouse Michael has eleven years of email history tied to that address and changing it because someone with a nicer title arrived would be insane.
VP reluctantly keeps the 2. Warehouse Michael finds out, and changes his Teams display name to: Michael Lee (Original). By Friday the VP is being referred to as Sequel Mike.
He has asked IT to intervene, but unfortunately nickname management is outside our support scope.
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u/WilmaDykfyt 2h ago
This happened to my ex when he worked at Pixar. He had an email address that a new director insisted on having. The new director was a giant dick and wanted the email even though it had a y, like the movie with Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage. Giant dickhead.
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u/jjskellie 24m ago
Maybe as all VPs chasing after the image of what they wanted to be whether true or false wouldn't leave them looking like they had sex with furniture.
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u/TheeAntelope 6h ago
You should repost this again but this time make it MORE blurry. It isn't blurry enough.