update: I need to cunningly find out 40 names

Remember the letter-writer who was terrible with names and after four years still didn’t know the names of many of their coworkers (#3 at the link)? Here’s the update.

I thought I’d send an update to this query from last year.

Took about a year, but I do know most names now! You suggested a confidant, but I was too embarrassed to share the full extent of my name-remembering-failure with one person, so I split the name load between a kind confidant and the ideas from the comments. One lucky break was a rare company-wide online meeting where I could gleefully screenshot names and faces.

Best advice I can give is to practice allll the time — whenever I see someone I try to recall their name or ask/look it up.

Suggestions from the comments included:

• Taking the next birthday/congrats/get well card around for signing (cleverrrr)
• Tagging along with a new hire when they do introduction rounds
• Getting ahold of project directories/org charts and working from there
• Making a little floorplan sketch to keep track of who’s where
• Filtering for people on the company’s LinkedIn
• Asking someone to drop by your desk instead of wandering around the building yourself in search of them
• Suggesting an in-house org chart
• Linking names to roles/vibes, e.g. “Cyril from HR with the nose ring”
• Going “brain fog, gosh, I’m blanking on your name, eep”
• Roaming the cubicles and calling out names to see who reacts (lol)

Cheers, and thanks.

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