Naughty Names and Funny Folders

Some time towards the end of last year, I was forced to do some housekeeping on the  company laptop. I had tendered my resignation and it was just a matter of time before the laptop would have to be returned to the company.  

In that process, I came across some of the most incredulous folder names, some of which I had totally forgotten:

One of my friends once shared that she had a "JIC" folder. When I asked her what the acronym stood for, she replied, "Just In Case". Apparently, she had stored all her backups in that folder. (This was, of course, back when Cloud was nonexistent or not popular). I thought that was very smart of her. I am ashamed to say that my backups, on the other hand, were scattered among folders such as "Miscellaneous", "Desktop", and "Rubbish".

Then there were, of course, important office documents such as "Office" or "Bonus and Workload Crap" where I stored all my years of KPIs and appraisals. I grudgingly recall those days when the company had occasionally loaded me with "Editing Nonsense" just because I happen to teach some English/Literature subjects. Somehow, the management had refused to believe that Literature Lecturers SHOULD NOT be confused with Copywriters, Proofreaders, or Editors.

But perhaps the folder that puts a smile on my face now is the one labelled "Mad Fella". In that folder lies all irrelevant documents created and demanded by one of the more overzealous superiors.

Now that I am on freelance, no one has yet inherited the "Mad Fella" folder. Nonetheless, teaching in three different institutions means I have at least 3 different email accounts and another 2-3 e-learning sites, all of which have different web addresses, login names, and passwords. All these are, of course, in addition to the usual logins and passwords to my personal emails, Facebook profile, Internet banking, and other online sites. For this reason, my current laptop has a file named "Passwords for Life". Before you consider hacking into that file, do be informed that I am not silly enough to save any logins or passwords of sites that are in any way linked to cash. =)

I also have another folder entitled "Tried, Tested, Proven" where I store all recipes which I have tried, tested, and ... proven.

It turns out that creating folders with weird names is not an exclusive art. When I asked around, some friends have mentioned that they too, are guilty of having in possession folders with rather suspicious names. These include "Do Not Open" (pretty obvious), "Ladies Training", "Blackhole", and "Greed". Just when I was about to conclude that this person was actively involved in human trafficking or cross-dressing, he explained that "Ladies Training" was actually a training file for a brand line, and as dodgy as "Blackhole" may suggest, it is merely a folder of articles which that person would want to read sometime in the future. "Greed" apparently contains details of debtors. (PM me if you need his contact.)

Perhaps I am not so weird, after all. But then again, I seem to notice that I have quite a few erm, strange entries in my phone, too.

Have you ever experienced this: You bump into someone at the mall and although you remember his/her name, you cannot immediately register where you first met this person. Was he/she a friend from primary school, secondary school, Form Six, undergrad, masters, the first office, second office, church, blah, blah, and blah? You begin to exchange updates about various other friends that each of you still keep in touch with, only to realise that half of that list are people not common to BOTH of you. When you come home, you excitedly tell one of your close friends that you bumped into that person. To which your close friend may answer, "Huh, who's that?" Once again, you realise that this friend does not know your other friend.

A real pigeon-hole

That is why I tend to compartmentalize and pigeon-hole my friends (sorry, guys). Unless you are a very close relative, I tend to bestow the same last names to everyone within the same organization or place where we first met. Of course some of these names may overlap, considering that some friends were with me at different phases and spheres in my life. Jennifer from institution ABC will be recorded as "Jennifer ABC", whereas Jennifer from XYZ will be known as "Jennifer XYZ". This method is not foolproof, though, but I'll save that story for another day.

When I scroll down the names in my phone, I see entries such as "Bank Nonsense" (I seem to like the word nonsense quite a lot), "DO NOT PICK UP", and "SPY". Other people claim to have "DO NOT PICK UP" in their phones, too, but upon checking, we realize that it is not the same person. Other creative names include "2 AM stalker" and "3 AM stalker". For unknown reasons, these two unidentified people have called me at those hours and had refused to say anything. I was half asleep in front of the TV when the first call came through. My brother decided to pick up the phone and save that caller as "3 AM stalker". It was therefore very natural for me to save the number of the next person who called at 2:00 AM but refused to say a word as "2 AM stalker". 

Almost the same time as I was asking around for weird entries in other people's phone, an advertisement came through via SMS at 3:45 AM one morning. It just so happened that I was catching up with my pile of work while seated in front of the telly (again), so I decided to 'punish' this person by leaving missed calls in his/her phone ... one hour later, at 4:45 AM. And another at 5:00 AM. The last one, just before I got ready for work at 5:45 AM. Call me Ms. Vindictive if you must, for I can tolerate spam messages but not at 3:45 AM in the morning! I then saved this caller's number as "Idiot @ 3:45 am".

One friend had an equally long and strange entry in her phone. Someone had called her at 12 midnight saying, "Do not leave me, Joanne!" Although she insisted that she wasn't 'Joanne', he did not believe her and kept calling. She saved his number as "Guy looking for Joanne". Other funny contributions include "Spam", "Blacklist", "Pervert", "Reject", "Gym (Do not answer)", and even "Sloth". I think if I were to go about asking for more, the list will be endless.

So what do you think? Is this a weird practice or do you also have naughty names and funny folders saved in your electronic gadgets?