Strangers

I work at a pretty large company. I think there's about 2,000 people in my office, spread out among 11 floors. And over the past few weeks, it's become increasingly clear to me that about half the people I come into contact with on a regular basis don't know my name.

It started a couple weeks ago, when the Big Guy's who run my team decided to cater lunch for everyone as a "Happy New Year/Thanks for your hard work" kind of thing. It was buffet style (great...), but it was free food and it was presented to us as kind of mandatory thing. That we would be given lunch and then as we were all eating together in the conference room, the bosses would have a few words to say about the upcoming year.

So at the end of this buffet line stood our project administrator, and our two big bosses. The admin's job in this situation was to introduce everyone to the bosses. Now...I've been with this company for 4 years, and I've had conversations with both these guys, so I assumed they knew me. I got to the first boss while the second in line was still talking to the guy ahead of me. I said, "Thanks for the lunch P." He shook my hand and said, "Happy New Year." My turn was up for the second boss. As we extended our hands toward each other to shake, the admin asked him, "Do you know Lauren?" I started to nod my head that sure, of course he knew me. But he replied, "No. It's nice to meet you. Thanks for your hard work." What a bunch of B.S! That guy must have been horrifyingly embarrassed to be introduced to people who have been working for him as long as I have. I was pretty shocked by it too.

But I am equally guilty of not knowing everyone's name. This week I got an email from a person who's name I didn't recognize, asking for some information to get me special computer access. Later that day, a guy who's always been really friendly to me came over to ask me a question about that computer access, and it occurred to me that the sender of the email who I didn't know was this same guy who I've said Hello to hundreds of times.

A few days later, my supervisor told me to go see J.K. about a file that he should email me. He's an important guy on our project, so I knew who he was and where he sat. I could tell that he recognized me, but when I asked him to send me an email, I saw a moment of fear cross his face when it occurred to him that he wouldn't know who to send the email to. As if he was going to half-ass his way through it, he opened up a new email message, but without making him prompt me, I told him my last name so he could find me in the email directory. You're welcome, Dude, for not making you ask me who the hell I am.

And then Thursday, I was working on an electrical panel elevation drawing that needed a structural mounting detail added to it as well. I was given the name and number of the structural guy who would be doing it, and he and I had to call each other pretty often over the following 24 hours to coordinate the drawing. When it was finally done, I printed the drawing and had to bring it to him to sign off on his part of it. Do you know how a person's name and voice gives you an impression of what you think they look like. Well when I got to this guy's desk, he looked nothing like I'd pictured...Probably because I wasn't picturing anyone that I knew.

Clearly, I don't know this guy very well...but it's a guy who I've had about a dozen conversations with. Just "How was your weekend?" kind of conversations that you have with people in the elevator, or the copy room, or the break room. But I've seriously talked to this guy at least a dozen times. I think we both felt really stupid about it. When I got to his desk, we both looked a little stunned and he said, "Oh. So you're Lauren." I kind of laughed and said, "Yeah. Well now I'll finally know your name the next time I run into you."

I think I need to start introducing myself to people right away from now on, to avoid any more of these awkward moments.