October 20, 2009

The Chronicles of “Dentistry Tim” ⁶

by Tim Lee • Life

There are times when we mistype our email address — forget to dot the dot and underscore the underscore. But somewhere out there, is another Tim, who has been taking the whole email typo business a little too far. I’m not really sure how someone can make so many blunders when it comes to their email address, it’s a stretch already for us average folks. That said, when you’re a candidate for Dental Surgery, one would think that the holder of such esteem title could at least type in their email address correctly. We shall call him “Dentistry Tim”.

Back in second year of university, I received an email in my gmail from the University of Toronto, letting me know that they’ve received my application to the Doctor of Dental Surgery Program for the 2006-2007 session, and requires some further documentation from me. Indeed, the thought of going through with dental school myself will make my mother no doubt very happy, but I couldn’t help but think about pulling someone’s teeth out — a rather frequent procedure for a dentist I’m afraid, and to that, I say “no way!”

At the time I felt bad for this “Dentistry Tim”. People make mistake all the time, and the poor guy might miss his deadline for supplement documentation if I don’t redirect this email to the right guy. So I gave University of Toronto a call, and they said they’ll fix it, all was well.

Fast forward to last month. I received another curious email from the University of Connecticut for Dentistry Tim, this time for Oral and maxillofacial Surgery residency. My first thought was surprisingly joyous. After all, it’s nice to know that Dentistry Tim has made it through his first few years of Dental school, and now is moving on to such a prestigious international surgical specialty. I fired an email back to the University of Connecticut letting them know that they’ve got the wrong Tim, and they should notify Dentistry Tim of his missing documents at once so he can continue to be considered for the residency. Admittedly, I was a little annoyed. How can someone be so careless to put a wrong email address into such important applications? Not to mention, twice!

About a week ago, I got another email from Loma Linda University, telling me that they were thrilled to offer Dentistry Tim an interview. By this point, half of me wanted to fly myself all the way to Loma Linda University and pose as Dentistry Tim. Imagine the possibilities:

Loma Linda: So, tell me why, in terms of of your ability and experiences, we should accept you into our residency?
Me: Well, I once knocked a kid over and some teeth fell out!
Loma Linda: … Uh…. wha…. umm… I beg your pardon?

Needless to say, doing so would probably lend me some jail time for identity theft. So I laughed it off and gave Loma Linda University a call, letting them know that they’ve got the wrong Tim.

At this point, even my friends thought it was rather ridiculous, one joked that one day I’ll get a password reset email for an account of some sort:

I laughed it off, and went on my merry way… until today, when another email popped in for Dentistry Tim, except, not Dentistry related at all:

Looks like Dentistry Tim managed to buy custom car parts using the wrong email address. Not only is this guy a Dentist, he also drive nice cars. One would think he still have lots of education loans to pay off, but that’s outside of my knowledge regarding Dentistry Tim.

What I do know though, is his address, and I feel like writing him a post card, complete with a photo of the CN tower on the back, and write something along the lines of “You know that interview? Yea, you would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for me, as well as all those due dates for supplementary submissions. So on those counts, do yourself a favour and stop mistyping your email address!” A better idea — ask my cousins who lives in the same city as Dentistry Tim to order copious amounts of Pizza to that address! Okay, only kidding. Though you must admit the thought of it is awfully tempting. I mean, were you expecting me to send a care package with a “Good Luck with Oral and maxillofacial Surgery” note attached?