The Anti-Careless Email Filter

There are numerous ways to spell Abu Fluffy:

1. Standard anglophone spelling: Abu Fluffy.
2. Arabs whose first language is not English might spell it: Abo Fluffy.
3. En français: Abou Flouffy.
4. Salafi spelling: Aboo Flufee.
5. Weird spelling: Abu Phluphy.

It turns out that my real name is spelled en français, and my work email address looks something like abouflouffy@someclothingcompany.com. I have thought about the possibility of adding abufluffy and all other common spellings as email aliases so that I don't ever miss an important email. However, I decided against it. Why would I ever want to receive emails from people who are too lazy or careless to look up my email address, ask for it, transcribe it from my business card properly, or write it down properly over the phone? I actually now think that the unusual spelling of my name is a blessing: it keeps the careless out of my inbox.

Originally, I was going to refer to such careless people as idiots, but it turns out that one of my best friends is a graduate from Columbia (and intuitively it seems that there must exist a definition of idiot that Ivy League graduates don't fit) and he made this very mistake. This is the guy who landed me my current job and facilitated my move to Amman, for which I am very grateful. He left my employer just as I joined it, and I told him that, despite my love for him as a friend, I was very relieved that he left the company; I knew I'd never be able to work with someone like him. I mean, how difficult is it really to look up someone's email address or ask for it before sending off an email that ends up getting lost? Duh!

For a while, I thought that I was pedantic and unforgiving of mistakes because I was a programmer, but I've worked with umpteen programmers that are not pedantic. Rather, I think I gravitated towards programming because it's so unforgiving. I remember the lab assistant for first year chemistry telling me that they were ecstatic if they got results of 80%. Personally, I was horrified. I don't care if it works 99.999% of the time; it has to be perfect. Programming and mathematics provide the unforgiving, get-it-right-or-fail mindset that I seem to have been born with.