Mitch Like Me

“Are you that Mitch Berg?”

When I moved to the Twin Cities, I looked in the Minneapolis phonebook. I counted seven Mitchell Bergs. To the best of my knowledge, I was number eight.

I didn’t think about it much, again, until probably the early 1990s, when I was trying to make a living in the IT business. During the five years I was a technical writer, and a few more times when I switched to user experience, I’d go to interviews, and be asked “are you the Mitch Berg that used to work at Control Data”?

Apparently, there is a Mitch Berg in the IT business – or was, anyway.  He is at least a few years older than me, and more of a programmer than an analyst/designer. But a Mitch Berg nonetheless.

And though over the years I’ve met all sorts of people who had met the other Mitch Berg, we’ve never met, nor have I actually met anyone who has but we met the other Mitch Berg. At least, not the Control Data Mitch Berg.

Of course, about the time I was getting into my career as a user experience guy, I got a lot more of the “Are you Mitch Berger, the Vikings punter?” But I haven’t had that one in a few years.

Of course, a year or two ago a number of Twin Cities liberal bloggers and other such bilge hit their pointy little knees every night praying that I was the Mitch Berg, City Councilman of some eastern border town along the St. Croix River, who had apparently resigned under some kind of fire. Because in the narrow, gray, lumpen, claustrophobic public restroom of the Lefty blogger “mind”, a juicy “gotcha” is really the highest joy one can aspire to. But no such luck – Not only have II never been elected to any office, I will never run for one.

And now, I’m told the circle was turning; a colleague of mine knows of a family with a young fellow named – you guessed it, Mitch Berg. I think he may have just graduated from high school, or is at least in that general age bracket.

And I can only hope he goes into IT, and has 10 or 15 years of being mistaken for me.

Or that other Mitch Berg.

Or that other other Mitch Berg.

———-

UPDATE:  The initial draft of this story was written entirely using my phone’s “Voice to Text” feature. As, indeed, some of you noticed.

But my mental reminder to “edit the post before  you publish it” apparently didn’t sink in. 

And it showed. 

(There is no “Natalie Berg” – that I know of…)

10 thoughts on “Mitch Like Me

  1. Natalie Berg — Mitch’s evil twin sister. Or triplet, assuming we don’t forget evil twin Jed, who is somewhat overdue for another appearance.

  2. There’s a guy in town who shares my name who is an attorney – and a big Lib advocate. I’ve gotten some interesting calls over the years. I always torch this guy by promising to send a check to whatever lib organization is trolling for dollars.

  3. I’m sure that if it were put to a vote here, you’d be voted the BEST Mitch Berg.

    At least you aren’t living up or down any other alternate /opposite identity, like Mona Sinclair….

    Just imagine how people with even more common names feel, LOL.

  4. given the proliferation of Mitch Bergs can we be certain that Bumpkin Billy Gleason got the right one? maybe its all an unfortunate mistake and he’ll offer up a heartfelt public apology.

  5. “Powhatan Mingo” is a character in an Owen Wister short story.

  6. My alternate Mitch Berg worked with me in the 218-er area in a retail environment in the early 70’s. Rumor had it he became a lawyer. Haven’t seen or heard of him in about three decades. He’d probably be in his mid-later 60’s now.

    I believe I broached the oft repeated question here shortly after I discovered this place, the day after the disastrous election of 2012 …

  7. “Hi, I’m Tom Swift . . . No, not that one, I’m from Northfield . . . y’know, I’ve always really wanted to work in the fast food industry . . . I see. Well, I wouldn’t have to start as shift leader . . . Yeah, St Olaf’s. No, A BA. Journalism . . . sorry to hear that . . . well, could I fill out an application, anyway? you could keep it on file in case anything opened up . . .”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.