I was reading the “Did Kamala Harris Work at McDonalds?” thread and I was absolutely shocked at the number of posters who said they could not remember a single co-worker or manager from most of their high school/summer jobs and other low-level work experiences. Even one that claimed they couldn’t remember the name or face of someone they had an extreme crush on.
This was in response to someone claiming that they could call 20-30 Burger King co-workers from 30 years ago to vouch for their work experience. Now that seems pretty extreme, too.
BUT, I had my first official summer job 31 years ago and I can picture everyone that worked in the kitchen and most in the dining room and I can name and describe everyone I worked with. I know for a fact my mother, who had her first job sometime around 1968 can do the same.
A retail job I had for one year 24 years ago, pretty much the same thing. Can picture and name most of the salespeople, cashiers, warehouse guys, the main janitor. Could probably tell you the year most of them were born and basic bio info, etc.
A few people I have stayed in touch with. That’s rare? Also, I have a handful of friends in a group and we’ve all known each other at least 30 years (two are my cousins, and then a few mutual friends all around the same age) and all of us worked at least one season at one of those jobs. That was kind of how things were when I was a teenager or young adult - get jobs and refer your friends and all hang out and make more friend/acquaintances.
And I can tell you, just about everyone else remembers at least a handful of old co-workers or friends of friends or whatever. We have a group chat and every so often one will bring up “hey, remember Jenna, that blonde college student who worked the cash register in the fall of 1999?” and everyone will remember and then go off on some tangent about some friend of a friend at a concert or the guy who worked in the audio department who had a band… or whatever.
Am I, my family, and most of my friends extreme outliers in remembering people and faces and connected details and events from 20-30 more years ago when we were 14-20 years old?
I remember names and faces of people who were important to me … I can visualize various teachers and classmates from high school even though I am 65. But temporary jobs that weren’t central to me? Naahhh.
I worked at a McDonald’s for a few months during my senior year of college, because I’d gotten a car and needed money for gas and insurance. It was just a way to get needed cash, nothing more.
I could tell you a little bit about the personality traits and physical appearance of the manager, the co-worker who was trying to outperform everyone because he wanted to become a manager, and a patron who came in every morning and ordered 3 hash browns and a large Diet Coke. But I don’t recall their names or much about how they looked. (Unsurprisingly, the patron was very overweight and had a grayish cast to his skin. And I think usually a bit of stubble, and grayish hair. But show me a bunch of photos of men with those characteristics but otherwise very different looking, and I wouldn’t have a clue which one was him.)
While I have a poor memory for faces (I’m definitely afflicted with mild prosopagnosia), I don’t think my level of historical recollection is particularly an outlier.
I remember people I worked with, from all the jobs I had, starting when I was about 17. I remember their names, and in many cases, their faces. Far too many to list here, and it wouldn’t matter anyway, because you folks wouldn’t know them.
I’m still in touch with a few, actually. They’ve become good friends.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that, for any given facet of human existence, there are high-performance outliers — not just conventional fields where such gifts bring fame and fortune, like in athletics, but basically any element of human capacity. Some people are supertasters. Some people randomly have perfect pitch. And some people are gifted in their ability to remember nearly everyone they’ve met. Sounds like you’re one of these.
When I was a freshman in college 50 years ago, I worked in the evenings for a dentist. I don’t remember any of the people or even the doctor’s name, but his day assistant pierced my ears at her house so I guess we were sort of friendly. I don’t remember her name or what she looked like.
For the rest of my college years, I worked 4 - 9:30 as a clerk on the maternity ward of a hospital. I remember three nurses - Johnnie, who was the first black person I worked with, Sally, who was married and had an affair with one of the married doctors and would not shut up about it to me, and Patty, who I socialized with outside of work for a while. I remember the resident I had a crush on, Kurt, and the doctor Sally got involved with, who had hit on me before they started up. There were lots of other people around but I only remember the ones I had some sort of interesting connection to.
After college I had a series of jobs lasting 2 - 4 years and I remember some of the people from them. But it’s almost always because of some significant event that they are tied to. It probably wasn’t until I joined the company I worked at for 23 years (and retired from) that I can name most everyone I worked with.
For me, I guess the time since I knew someone is less important than the connection I had to them. If the connection wasn’t there, my brain didn’t waste the space on them.
At my High School, I had fellow students that were always in my class throughout the full seven years, and whom I now can’t remember their names. Not all of them, some I was very close to and can recall quite well, but one or two are just vague memories only.
But then on the other hand, sometimes I will check the date and immediately say “Oh, it’s ____'s birthday,” and they are someone I haven’t laid eyes on in forty years.
It’s weird what sticks in the brain and what doesn’t.
My first job was in my dad’s office and I remember a few of the people, some of whom are now dead. I’m even friends with one on FB. I remember some of my grade school friends, a few from high school, fewer still from college. I remember a few from Navy boot camp (1973) and some from the various training commands and squadrons I was assigned to.
On the other hand, I can’t recall the names of a couple of my post-retirement bosses from a couple of short-term jobs I’ve had within the last 10 years. Or the name of that thing you use to do the stuff on that other thing…
I remember some high school teachers and close friends.
Coworkers at temp jobs? Nah. I was never that close to them. I do remember my bosses name at the grocery store. I had to think about it for a few minutes.
I’m surprised at details I have forgotten. Like my class schedules. I remember the classes I took in different grades. But not the order throughout the day. I followed that schedule 5 days a week for 8 months. How could I forget it?
I think as students we mentally reset at the end of each school year? Focused on summer vacation. Then memorized a new locker combination and class schedule for the new school year?
I don’t remember locker numbers either. I never really knew that. I identified my locker by location. I went to my locker several times a day to get books. My feet knew where to go.
I feel like this answers its own question. If you are an extreme outlier, most of your friends would not be the same way. Family I could maybe see if there was a genetic component, but not most of your friends too.
I think it would be legitimate to say that you and your friends are at one end of a spectrum, though. I suspect people who post in threads may be disproportionately likely to not remember names and faces well, as that’s a skill that comes in handy when you have lots of interpersonal interactions, and people who spend a lot of time online may not interact with lots of people on a daily basis.
The other thing I’m wondering is, how much time did you spend at these first jobs? As CairoCarol mentioned, it’s easier to remember the names of classmates than coworkers at a temp job. My first few jobs were only a few hours a week over the course of a few months. I’m more likely to remember the names of kids I went to camp with than a person I interacted with for four hours on a Saturday when I was 16.
I remember a lot of people from age 5 on, but not many from temp jobs or those like fast food where my attention was public-facing. Sit across from people at staff meetings? Sure, I was paying attention to coworkers because we were interpersonally engaged. Remember people from an industrial job? No, I was focused on not slicing off my fingers.
I can tell you the configuration of every classroom I was in from 3 years old through college, most of the teachers, and some to many classmates. My editor at the local paper where I had a column, sure. The vapid liar working the other cash register, not so much.
Memory is one of my gifts and curses. I remember names, faces, and things people said to me going back to early childhood. I can forgive but not forget. When I was drinking I had a tendency to throw peoples words back at them for funny banter, almost got me killed once.
As for coworkers, I remember many names and even more faces. If I can’t think of the name, I definitely have strong memories of things we said and done. And if I think about it long enough I can often ar least recall their first name
I think a lot of people were posting that they also couldn’t remember people from long past temporary jobs because they were agreeing that asking her to remember people (or people to remember her) was no real way to prove whether or not she worked there. It wasn’t intended to insist that people who can remember coworkers from 30-40 years ago are rare weirdos.
I assume there’ll be a lot of variance both because different people have different spans and methods of memory and because each person has their own past with moments that mattered to them and those that didn’t. I don’t remember anyone from a few college semesters of working various McD’s jobs but can easily recall faces and names of people I worked with earlier in a high school retail job. The high school people were friends and the nature of retail allowed for different moments to do memorable things than in college where it was just a way to make a few bucks between classes and I never really tried to click with my rotating cast of coworkers.
But the fact that I can easily remember ten people from 1989 (and likely more if prompted) and zero people from 1992 doesn’t actually mean much besides “Don’t trust someone to remember their long-lost coworkers just because you do”.
I think that whether or not someone remembers these kinds of things comes down to how important that period was in one’s life. If it was a formative experience, or formative time I could see remembering it better.
I worked a lot of jobs and lived in a lot of places, also during my teen years when I worked a burger job, I was high, really really high.
In high school, my part time retail job was a significant part of my social life so I remember those people.
In college, McD’s was something I did to fund having a social life with other people, so those employees were forgettable.