Pickering, Stephen
Stephen.Pickering at caremark.com
Mon May 17 09:42:55 CDT 2004
John, your story sounds very familiar, and I can assure you, it doesn't just happen among people with common names. Before finding gainful employment, I tried my hand at being an actor in Chicago. At the time, another actor named Steve Pickering also lived and worked in Chicago (and much more successfully than I did!....) Over the course of what I thought of as my career, I heard stories of this other Steve Pickering. One casting agent told me that they quit using him for some reason, then told me, "I hope we got the right one." Yeah, so did I. At one time, this other Steve Pickering and I lived about a mile away from each other, both near Lake Shore Drive. His girlfriend called him on the phone, got my number from 411, and had a conversation with my fiancée (at the time). I heard it was quite an interesting conversation until both women realized they were talking about two different "Steve Pickering"s. This does point to one solution, though I think it is imperfect (for obvious reasons). The Screen Actor's Guild enforces a key of Actor Name, which is made of First Name, Middle Name, and Last Name. Two of these may be null. Each instance must be unique. If I joined SAG (a man can dream, can't he?), I would not be able to join as "Steve Pickering". I would have to use something else, like "Stephen Pickering" or "Stephen J Pickering" that has not yet been used. Again, while this may work (not always) for SAG, it is imperfect in the real world, when you are trying to convince a casting director that you are not THAT Steve Pickering, and he says that he was hoping that you were. Name is a poor key in and of itself. Something more descriptive is needed to differentiate people. As for the repeating value argument, it is interesting from a theoretical standpoint, but not very practical. For example, are "Smyth" or "Smythe" or "Smithee" misspellings of "Smith", or valid, different values? There probably isn't one pat answer. Who would want to maintain this? What does it get you? Steve -----John Clark's Original Message----- My first major Access program that I wrote was for our county's pistol permit department, to track pistol permits. I was shocked to discover that they tracked these things by name only. I thought I found a major problem, when they gave me their original tables and I discovered hundreds of missing SSNs. They told me that SSN was not required data. I told them that I had a problem with this, as a programmer and as a private citizen. I told them about a personal situation of mine involving confusion with names. My name is John W Clark. The name itself sounds fake, with all three components being very common. My friends used to say that it was a fake name. I first heard of another local guy with the same name, including initial, about 14 years ago. I was in a bar with a bunch of coworkers, and I was introduced to a guy who was a friend of a friend. I don't drink much these days, but thank god that when I did, I was a friendly drunk, because after speaking to my new friend, I discovered that he thought I was someone else--someone who used to beat him up quite a bit in high school, shared the same name as me, and apparently also shares some of my physical characteristics. This new friend had gone into the service upon graduation and got, according to him, quite a bit larger than school days, and he was looking at a little payback. He told me, that he thought I was someone else, and that he and his brother-in-law, who looked like he had been recently paroled from a penitentiary, were going to kick the hell out of me, when I left the bar. Luckily though, he did speak to me, and discovered that I was not his prey, and all ended well. But, a few years later, something potentially much more worse happened. I was still living at home with my folks--mostly just sleeping there--but I was about 20 miles away at work, when some visitors arrived at their house. Two detectives from the sheriffs department, showed up at the house with a warrant for my arrest. Actually, they did want John W Clark, but they were coming to get the wrong one. Again, this turned out OK, but it was taken care of, while I was at work--had I been there, they would have sorted it out, at the county jail--probably after processing! After coming to work for the county, I discovered that I would be doing quite a bit of work for the District Attorney's office. I told them all my stories so that they wouldn't think it was me, if the name came across their desks. As it turns out, they are pretty familiar with this guy, and they raz me about it quite often. The pistol permit office send a "Mental Hygiene" check to Albany, and it is simply a form letter with a name on it. How the hell do they know exactly which John W Clark they are sending info on? If there are two in this county, how many are in the state? There are several more people with the name John Clark in my area without the initial. I was also surprised to find out that each county does its own thing. I believe there are 62 counties in NY, and they can all have their own numbering, methods, etc.. All this organization must be why were paying such high taxes here! >>> artful at rogers.com 5/17/2004 1:17:26 AM >>> As I pointed out in a previous msg on this thread, I know 5 John Reids, and all of them are in the software biz. Go figure. Them Irish, they do like to propagate! Check Chicago for example :) (Does anyone else LOVE Miller's Crossing? My fave movie of all time.) I googled my own name and then ran 411.com (a phone number database) and found a painter of the same name died early in the last century and no less than 20 identical names in Canada alone. In short, names alone don't cut it. Add something unique and you have a chance. Phone numbers are candidates, but it could happen that 2 Arthur Fullers reside at the same address (unlikely I admit, but possible). Even SSNs have been demonstrated to be non-unique (counterfeit IDs, bad coding, identity theft, etc.).