Nice to Meet you Bob?

(Reposted from a previously published diary.)

My manager took me around the bank today to meet my new “work family.” It seems that I have a few odd cousins hanging around, but everyone was friendly and seemed genuinely interested in being helpful. One of the bad things about being new is learning all of the names. I personally am very bad with names. I have read up on all of the tricks and techniques, but none of them seem to work.

My wife likes to associate people with other folks that she knows well, and then, when she sees the new person, she just recalls the old friend and the name is there. Naturally, when I try it, it doesn’t work. My experience usually goes something like this.

“Nice to meet you, Dave,” I might say as I shake the hand of a new acquaintance. At that point I think to myself, one of my best friends was named Dave, and I walk off, confident that I have employed a proven memory trick.

The next day I see the same fellow, and I’ll be danged if I can’t think of the person with whom I had associated them. It seems odd that all the memory tips that are given rely on memory to work. If I had a good memory in the first place, I wouldn’t need to use tricks to recall a name. The only real trick that seems to work is keeping a list of frequently used names handy. It works pretty well, but some people think it strange that I am always looking at the palm of my hand just prior to greeting them by name.