Being Anne Myles

I don't know when I first started being Anne Myles - maybe a couple of years ago when some internet survey or whatnot asked for my name and I didn't feel like giving my real one. Since then I've been giving the name Anne Myles to various consumer reports, online surveys etc. When I receive mail for Anne Myles I know not to get too excited, even if I may be promised the chance to win $10,000.

But Anne Myles has always just been a name, an alias... until yesterday.

Yesterday I did a mystery shop at a high end bank. I was asked to go in with a certain scenario, essentially act as a person who has over $150K in assets and is looking for a 'better banking experience'. So Anne needed a back-up story.

It turns out Anne got her masters in English Lit and has gone on to work at the Canada Council for the Arts. She enjoys her job since she is tapped into the up-and-coming Canadian arts scene. She is married to a man who has been a director at Nortel for the past 7 years, but whose division recently got sold to Nokia. Turns out she also has a daughter named Miya, (but that was only because I couldn't trust Miya to keep a poker face during the shop).

And let me tell you, as Anne I got treated pretty nicely at this bank. As Anita I probably would have been politely told that perhaps this wasn't the best place for me. As Anne, I was wooed and wowed with promises of "red carpet treatment", special rates on investments, attractive rewards packages with credit cards. Want to bank off-shore, not a problem? Open an account in Germany? They'd have it for me in 3 days. Want to buy a 2nd house in the south of Frace? They can take care of the mortgage and all the credit approvals necessary.

I got a little nervous when at the end of the interview, the "Relationship Manager" I was speaking with fired off an email to Anne's account to make sure I'd have the details of her contact info and the website when I got home. I was worried she'd get an error message right there... then Anita would have had some explaining to do.

But it seems the email went through, so to the other Anne Myles out there, I apologize for cluttering up your inbox. But it sure was fun being you for an hour.