Did I Get Your Email?

There are two of me. There’s the me who gets up, changes my son’s diaper and puts on my 17-year-old shoes that I know need to be replaced at some point but can’t seem to get around to replacing. And then there’s the me who lives in Los Angeles and gets my email. And I get his.

We’re both named David Silverman and we both work for the same company. Despite attempts to dispel confusion on the internal email system — I am David S. Silverman and he is David R. Silverman — things still go wrong because people type “David Silverman” into Outlook and press send, blithely relying on autocomplete to find their intended David.

What’s amazing and terrifying is the contents of the messages I get. Suffice it to say that my doppelganger is involved in matters of far more sensitivity to the firm than I. And because people are incautious before clicking “send” I get all kinds of documents I shouldn’t.

I also get his physical mail. The other day I got a confidential CD intended for “him.” And yesterday I got an envelope from a law firm that had been stamped by our internal compliance group. It was, of course, for David Silverman. I called the company, worried that I was about to be drawn into some North-by-Northwest web of mistaken identities. It turned out to be about some other, hitherto unknown, third version of me who has overseas bank accounts. Good for him, I suppose, but what if I tried to use his account numbers which had just slipped into my hands?

The problem is also not limited to email or to snail mail or to David Silvermans. My desk phone also has a split identity with the former occupant of my office who, judging by the messages I get, has an important role to play in the world of international criminal trials and a robust social schedule.

But he has nothing on the former owner of my BlackBerry’s phone number. That guy is some sort of mysterious Latin playboy who frequently gets calls from intoxicated revelers who appear to be calling from capitals of East African nations and exhorting him to “come out and join the party and meet the ladies we’ve got for you.” As you may imagine, it has proven difficult to explain these 4am calls to my wife.

On the opposite side, my own mail has taken its own circuitous routes, some known, some unknown. One item that recently bit me was a five-figure bill for back taxes from from my failed company. They were not prepared to accept my valid excuse that I did not live at the place they’d mailed the notice to, and that my lack of response was due to my not living there. While “Dave’s not here” was the reality, it seems that interest and penalties accrue regardless.

Add this to the account statements I get at home for the former occupants, the occasional email that confuses me with the most successful David Silverman, and the unknown quantity of my own email and mail that is distributed to random people who live where I lived, and we have quite a mess.

Even without identity fraud, it seems that we are cursed to live in a world where the expectation of perfect information-delivery renders the hapless recipient of a wrong number or email as “assumed guilty.” (There have been several occasions where exactly that happened to me. “Hey Steve.” “This isn’t Steve.” “Then why do you have his phone?”)

What to do about confusion? My suggestion is as follows.

1. Try your best to let people (and tax authorities) know when you’ve moved. Fill out the information with your postal service. Email everyone. Put it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and wherever else your identity resides.
2. Leave a note along with postage and envelopes at your former residence asking them nicely to forward anything that slips through and looks important.
3. Put your name on your voicemail. Enough already with “You have reached 333-4200.” Save us all some errors and let us know who we’ve called.
4. Be kind to others so that they may be kind to you. If you get something that isn’t yours, pay it forward — literally — by forwarding it.
5. As the sender, remember that your message may not get through to your intended recipient. Matter-of-factly follow up (rather than assuming that they’re avoiding you) and be careful with sensitive information (duh).

What do you think? Have you been mistaken online or offline? Do random people run up to you and think you’re their bald friend Steve? (Happens to me at least once a month. Who is this Steve?) What have lengths have you gone to to ensure you get your own correspondence?