My name’s Tom.

 I’m at Ramkhamhaeng’s IIS and my name’s Tom.

 Now, you may be thinking, ‘Who cares what your name is? Just get to the point for Christ’s sake.’ But, the point is my name. Now I know that there are students who have a hard time at Ramkhamhaeng due to the lecturers, the office staff, or themselves. I for one am one of these students, or should I say was one of these students. In my first semester all I seemed to do was bitch and moan about everything. I put it down to being British, but after a while I noticed a change in my attitude. This change was brought about by a simple effective act – I learnt the names’ of the office staff.

Now that I know their names I can honestly say that I very rarely have a problem with the office staff. They also know my name, which is extremely important when you consider the amount of names that they have to remember and the importance of making sure the right name goes the right grade (saying that, my surname has changed in the past, but I put this down to human error and it was soon rectified).

 I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that if people know your name, and in turn you know theirs, you become more human, you treat people with names with more patience and respect, and things get done a hell of a lot quicker.

 The same can be said for your professors. When they are marking your paper and they see ‘just another name’ they may be inclined to mark the paper fairly, whereas if they see a name on the paper and they know the face that goes with the name and all the positive things that they associate with that name, there could be, perhaps, a bias towards that student with a name.

 So, the next time you’re on your way to the office, remember that the staff have names. The new girl who sits in the corner on the left is called Nong. Beside her is Em (male with glasses). Nun is always helpful (one o’clock as you enter) and if you are BA English you need to know about Taew (I believe that she is in charge of the program) who sits at the back left of the office on the left. If in doubt, take a look at their pictures to the left of the office doors and refer to them by their first names. But most important of all, don’t forget to tell them your name.

My name’s Tom.

 Thanks for reading.