Memory

[andrewducker]

My memory is _terrible_ for names.  Absolutely awful.  And it's even worse for jargon, technical commands, etc.  They strike me as almost entirely arbitrary and they slip away from me very easily.

From a personal point of view this leads to me referring to people by their position rather than their name, especially when explaining things to people for the first time - The Girlfriend, The Ex, My Brother, etc.

But at least I can learn people's names when exposed to them enough.  In work it's _terrible_.  I spent 6 months working on a project last year.  6 months where I was typing in the names of the jobs I was writing/testing at least 20 times a day, and sometimes over a hundred.

I went to look for those jobs just now, to see how I'd done something (so I could do it again for a new project), and could I remember the name of the jobs, the place where they were kept or the name of the program that tells you where to find things?  Could I hell.

This is why I love IDEs and modern languages/environments with their tooltips and intellisense.  I can concentrate on the architecture and making sure the shape of the data and the code is right, and leave the details of naming conventions to the device with the perfect memory.

If only there was something similar for people (I could really do with tooltips when meeting people for the second time).

Comments

[guybles.livejournal.com]

You could always take Polaroid photos of them, write their names at the bottom and hang them on a cord around your neck.

That way, eventually, nobody will want to speak to you for fear of having their face added to the scary collection draped about you, leaving you to get on with real life without having to remember real names.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

LOL

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I am a bit better with people (though it takes 2 mentions of their name for it to sink in), but probably worse than you for the work side of things. I forget what the things do and the structure and everything. I am amazed by people that can tell you all about something they wrote 10 years ago, or remember how to use a tool they use once in a blue moon.

It may be that you *think* of people a bit more in terms of their relation to you than as individuals. [shrug] I know I most definitely do - I think we all do, to varying degrees (and admit/notice it to varying degrees).

[andrewducker]

Oh, I remember the structure of the system I just worked on. I can tell you how things flow through the system, where they come from, where they go.

But I'll probably say things like "It comes from that system. You know. The one that stuff gets entered onto by sales people. Thingy."

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

When I start a new job I always wonder "why do you people look so alike?", by the end they no longer look alike, but the people in my nextjob do