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Comment by zeroonetwothree | Hacker News Reader

Outside of school I can’t think of even a single instance of alphabetical sorting of my name (I have a middle letter). What situations are you in that this comes up a lot?

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Probably every single health or wellness "Find a Provider" portal lists them A-Z. That's a multi-billion dollar industry. If I was Dr. Zachary Zane, I'd change my name.

AAA Aches and Ailment

My mom made the critical mistake of marrying from first five letters down to last five letters during the police academy, only later to be released from the "we have to expose you to tear gas so you know how it feels and only use it judiciously" chamber in alphabetical order by last name.

It was 40ish years ago and I still don't think she's forgiven my dad.

My daily standup is run by the order my boss sees the participants in the JIRA board -- My first name starts with W, so I'm last in that list. Makes staying engaged the whole meeting hard...

I'm the first in the list, which has some advantages, but I do get tired of always being the first person to throw themselves on whatever grenade is lying around.

As the other poster said, the order of standup and other such things. Having a "Z" means that you're usually last, and sometimes people make a point of "hey let's do it in reverse today" where I end up being first.

I remember when working on joint tasks, by the time it got to me, most of the people that worked with me had already given their updates and details. So when it was my turn, I'd say "same as A, B, C", cause they'd given all the juicy details.

Other than that, it's pretty straightforward and boring. The world doesn't magically function differently for us.

Company Discord of a client. My name is among the top.

It's a remote job so, being frequently visible in that list can be an advantage.

The order in JIRA boards during the daily standups comes to mind. I am sure there are similar examples in other domains that are not software related.

I have a middle letter and also don't remember this happening much.

We should ask people with later letters if they remember this more.

I'm a near last letter surname. It's not uncommon for arbitrary things to be sorted by name, but a ton of official things use surname ordering. There's things that also I tend to seem to be last on where I don't know the sorting method, but I suspect it isn't uncommon for someone to just throw in a sort somewhere (though it's also common to see people do things in a LIFO so disadvantage people who get shit done on time... My apartment renewal does that...). I also remember getting a PCR test in covid where they binned by last name.

I can just say I do remember being last in a lot of arbitrary and official things and seeing other friends just get done with it faster and have to waste less time sitting and waiting.

Whenever my Doctor's office calls to arrange annual vaccines, I (surname starts with A) get an appointment just before my boyfriend's (surname starts with B) because they invariably phone me about 10-20 minutes before him.

Yeah I don't think it really happens outside school, but school is pretty formative and it happens all the time in school.

It happens in your phone contacts when you’re deciding who to talk to. You’re starting with your Abrahams, Billys and Changs, probably rarely reaching out to your Xaviers, Yusufs and Zeldas about going out tonight because you’ve already assembled a crew by the time you reach the Mimis, Natashas and Ottos.

I don't think many people use their phone contact list like that.

I wouldn't be surprised. It's very natural. Probably not for that specific use case but if for some reason you are actually going through the list then it's natural

Plus, it's common for me to meet someone on a first-name basis and not find out their last name right away. And people's last names change more often than their first names. Phone sorting by first name is the way to go.

Do none of your friends like or dislike any of your other friends?

Probably but that’s not how they’re organized in my contacts. It’s a list not a graph.

just want to add that in my lifetime that switched from being "by last name" to "by first name". So, Yusuf Ahmed and Abraham Zigfeld experienced a noticeable shift in popularity that they were totally unprepared for

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