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

It took about a year, but I do know most names now. You suggested finding a confidant, but I was too embarrassed to share the full extent of my name-remembering failure with just 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. The best advice I can give is to practice all the time — whenever I see someone, I try to recall their name or ask and look it up.

Tips That Worked

Suggestions from the comments included:

  • Taking the next birthday, congrats, or get-well card around for signing
  • Tagging along with a new hire when they do introduction rounds
  • Getting hold of project directories or org charts and working from there
  • Making a little floorplan sketch to keep track of who sits where
  • Filtering for colleagues on the company’s LinkedIn page
  • Asking someone to drop by your desk instead of wandering the building yourself in search of them
  • Suggesting an in-house org chart if one doesn’t exist
  • Linking names to roles or memorable details, e.g. “Cyril from HR with the nose ring”
  • Using a self-deprecating opener like “brain fog — I’m blanking on your name, sorry!”
  • Roaming the cubicles and calling out names to see who reacts

With persistence and a few creative strategies, learning the names of dozens of coworkers is very much achievable — even years into the job.