you know, i've never been good at remembering people's names. heck, i even introduced my own newborn with the wrong middle name to my own family...remembered the letter it started with, but i had the wrong name....and that's just ridiculously unacceptable.
and it's odd, because i remember intricate and complex command lines on all flavors of operating systems after seeing those once, and they're a heck of a lot more complex than remembering someone's first name. it's something i've always wished i could "fix," because people just like you better if they think you remember them, even something as basic as their first name.
i'm thinking about it, because i had a training class yesterday...walk in, and i recognize the instructor...he was the same instructor from a class i had about a year ago...in that class, everyone shows up, sits down, and the instructor says "why don't we get the introductions out of the way..." and then proceeds to introduce everyone in the class...he'd remembered everyone's names, after hearing them all for the first time that morning. quite impressive...
i asked what method he used for this feat...was it association? did he have some sort of phoenetic device? no...just good at remembering lists...
so here i am, a year later...walk into the class...not only does he remember my name from the first class, but he remembers details about my life...things like what happened during my first week in college that drove me into IT, bits about my hometown, and so on...needless to say, i was impressed, particularly in the face of my complete lack of skill in this area.
it made me feel good to be remembered, and i started thinking, i need to develop better skills in that area...i need to start remembering people, and referring to them by name...but there are a lot of names out there. i can't even remember them all without associating them to a particular person's face. so i'm thinking, to make things easier on myself, maybe i'll just try to remember the first letter of everyone's name. there's only 26 letters, after all, so even if I *have* totally forgotten someone's letter, I have a 3.8% chance of getting it right with a random guess. That flies up to 2 out of 26, or 7.6%, if someone has a first and last name that start with different letters. with the whole name thing most people practice, the chance of picking a correct name drops to nearly nothing, what with the high quantity of names floating out there.
i think others will soon adopt my system, when they see how much more efficient it could be.
"a little recognition..."
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