Correcting someone - did I do all right?

[MamaMootz]

I am supporting a newly hired high up mucky muck (Todd) in my organization - he reports to the top person at our location. I am managing his calendar for him, and he had a meeting scheduled with another mucky muck (Mary).

Mary's assistant forwarded me a meeting request for today asking me to reschedule. She had the subject line in the e-mail set to read "Meeting with TOM - Today". I replied to her initial e-mail giving her his availability and in my reply, referred to him by his proper name (Todd).

She replied back to me again, still calling him Tom so she didn't read my subtle hint - so when I had to reply back to her I said "FYI, his first name is Todd, not Tom" with a smiley face so she didn't think I was being brusque.

She sent me a reply reading "Ouch!"

I thought it would be better for me to let her know she had his first name wrong, rather than have her walk up to him and call him Tom to his face - was I too abrupt?

[CakeBeret]

I think you were fine. It would have been worse for her to call him by the wrong name to his face.

[Twik]

I'd assume the "OUCH!" was "Oops, that would have looked bad if I'd kept on with it". I can't see how you were brusque - this is important.

[siamesecat2965]

YOu did fine. I think her "ouch" was more along the lines of oops I messed up, and not that you were correcting her. I'd hope she's professional enough to realize its better you correct her, nicely, than have her call him by the wrong name!

Slightly OT but I used to work in a law firm where we had summer interns. One of the name partners was older, and married to another one of the partners, who was quite a bit younger than he was. They met there, fell in love, and got married. So I was in a meeting with some of the interns, and one of them referred to her as his daughter. I quickly, but politely said, no actually, she’s his wife. The intern was so very grateful that I had let him know, so he didn’t put his foot in his mouth later on!

[jpcher]

I'd assume the "OUCH!" was "Oops, that would have looked bad if I'd kept on with it". I can't see how you were brusque - this is important.

I agree.

You did the right thing by correcting her and I think you did it politely. After a subtle hint didn't work, an obvious statement like you made was the right thing to do.