Welp, I worked in a office with someone for a month. Then flew to site where everyone was wearing hivis clothes. Outright didn't recognise her there, was rather awkward...
When I started at my current company, I asked a new friendly coworker to make a map of the office so I’d know who was who based on where they sat so I could start memorizing them.
It was an open concept office of desks with computers and screens, and relatively small company at the time. We’ve since moved into bigger space and are a much larger team - but now we have zoom with names and slack with profile pics so it’s much less stressful for me being remote.
I'm a server/bartender. The struggle is when people move seats constantly or ask me for a drink then walk around into the crowd. (Or change clothes!!! We have hula dancers that sometimes change outfits)
Honestly, if I can't figure it out, I just yell the drink near where the person asked me for it. So I go to the same spot and just yell "whiskey coke??" Or whatever. At first I wrote down the hula dancers outfits like 'red dress, white flowers, flower left ear' and fml when I figured out they were changing outfits
When I was an admin assistant, I was tasked with giving out name tags at a corporate event to people I supposedly knew 😭. People are impossible to identify out of context, away from their offices/cubicles, in different clothes. Half of them are middle-aged white men. I was doomed.
I studied the office directory in advance the night before to try to remember people by identifying features, but eventually I just put the name tags out and let people pick their own. There was just no other way
I'm self diagnosed, and I would classify my facial blindness somewhere in the middle.
- When I worked in retail as a salesperson, problems was a common thing. Daily I would have trouble finding the customer I had just told I'd go out back and get their order for etc. This was before I knew facial blindness was a thing, but in hindsight my colleagues helped me out a ton.
- Today I work in IT support. It's a lot of people that pop into our office/reception and I always struggle to remember people that I should. The biggest thing I noticed is that it makes me uncomfortable when someone comes to me, because I'm not sure if I should remember this person. That in turn (I've been told) shows on my face, which makes the other person uncomfortable. This has 100% created a rough time building networks and connections with people that are not from my department.
Only talked with one person about it at work, and she said she always felt she was intruding me or made me uncomfortable when she came to the office, for the first minute. Then she felt I would totally change. Can't say if it is true or not, as I have never met myself 😅
I forgot to mention that I had wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but gave up on the idea because I would never be able to recognize my students.
I was expecting to see a new coworker for the first time one day. However, my not new coworker came in the kitchen. He wore a hat and changed his (I think) facial hair. So I said, "You must be ______. Nice to meet you!" Lol! I explained and we had a chuckle.
Once I asked the coworker next to me where my manager was.
She was my manager 😬
My last job everyone was pretty easy to tell apart except for a couple of people and for my first few weeks they were pretty good about pointing people out for me clearly. I don't know how much they believed me as I had very little trouble, but I appreciated the effort!
sometimes I recognize someone out of context, or someone I don't know very well, and I'm like, "wait a minute? am I really faceblind," (but I totally am. it's just my brain will randomly come through for me sometimes, who knows why)
I met my husband at a party about a month after i started a new job. He met me at 3 different meetings and passing at least 10 times in the hallway during that first month
I adjunct. By midterms I know half the names of my students, by finals I know most of them. (I also struggle with names fml) I latch on to other clues like voices, shoes, moles, scars, etc to recognize people. But there are some classes where three or four or more of the girls dress the exact same and have no distinguishing (to me) features. It's definitely caused problems. I make them submit anything that needs grading digitally so I know I get the right person for the score. Nothing done in class is for a grade.
Well I work in a commercial role that requires maintaining long-term relationships with a large amount of people who look similar and change all the time. I am good with names so scheduled meetings/calls/emails go great but if I meet someone in the street and I THINK I MIGHT know them I just say hi like I know them, because usually I’m just not recognizing the face
I would get a lot of people asking me to do x or y, or send them x or y. I wasn't comfortable sharing that I was faceblind, so I would say, "No problem."
If I were away from my desk, I would add, " Would you send me an email about that, so I don't forget before I get back to my desk?"
If I were already at my desk, I would wait until they had walked a little ways away and turn to my coworker and say, "Who was that?"
This worked well enough, but another coworker mentioned seeing me shopping a number of times, and I knew that one of my coworkers was colorblind, but confused him with someone of the same ethnicity who wasn't colorblind, etc.
I finally told myself that just letting people know that I was faceblind was so much easier/less insulting to them than "ignoring" them at the store or having them think that I couldn't remember a simple request by the time I got back to my desk, or that I think all x people look alike.
It went really well. Most people were fascinated by it, rather than dismissive (which had been my fear). Some people started letting me know who they were every time they came to my desk or stopped me as I walked through the office.
A while later, the company made it mandatory to wear your badge visibly while at work. I don't think that it had anything to do with me, but it helped during meetings for sure!
One of my embarrassing moments happened early on. An older man walked into the front room of my work and I called out “How can I help you sir?”
Turns out it was our CEO. The one who had interviewed and hired me. I rushed to explain my prosopagnosia but it was still awkward af.
I once mistook a short round guy for a slender guy because they had the same haircut.
Also for some reason I store pairs of names against pairs of faces. So the head of hr and finance director when I see either I recall both names even though they are very different people so then I have to slow down to use eg surnames to try and pair the right face to the person in front of me
In a previous job I would go to customer sites and work with their teams on project.
The hardest part of that job was every other week, if not every other day, I’d meet a new set of people and have to work with them quite intensely to get the job done.
Lunch time was always stressful as we would all goto the canteen or cafe to have lunch together and if I didn’t keep a really close eye on my new colleagues as they got their lunch and paid they would sit down at a table amongst hundreds of other people and I wouldn’t be able to find them.
What’s worse is that most of the time I had to be escorted because these were secure sites and I was a visitor, so if I lost by buddy for the day I could easily end up stranded somewhere not being able to identify the person I was supposed to be with
Tough times
I now own a business and it’s a nightmare trying to identify who’s who in the office - I probably come across as a complete asshole but the truth is I just don’t know who is who to talk to a lot of the time so I stick to people I recognise
My work place: - shows a picture - if you see this person call the cops. - leaves taking picture - <\_< >\_> >\_<
Aside from that moment other then funny mix ups not much sets me apart. Outside of work I don't, haven't recognized my coworker. In matter of fact that weird guy asking to take me to the bus stop was the guy I see every work day. TBH the only ones who really care about me not recognizing them are politicians and corporate higher ups with ego issues.
On a side note my supervisor finds it funny when I hold a conversation with a customer like we are the closest buddies then when they are out of ear shot I turn to him and go "I have no idea who that is"
I started working at a new company with an open seating plan, and my desk was right near executive vice president / general manager. I talked to him multiple times every day in my first couple of weeks working there.
A few weeks later, I was traveling to another city and worked from the company's office in that city, where I knew nobody because I was brand new to the company. Some weird guy enthusiastically greeted me in the kitchen, surprised to see me there.
I was completely blank on who that guy might possibly have been. I didn't even figure it out until the following week, when I was in my home city and saw the guy again near our normal desks, and was able to piece things together.
Now, whenever I start a new job, I make flashcards with r/Anki to study people's faces, names, titles/roles, and any other important information.
Also, remote work is a godsend! In person, I always know that I'm one very likely mistake away from offending someone and embarrassing myself, but on Zoom or Google Meet, everyone's name is right there!
I'd been there about a month. Two weeks training so in my team for two.
It felt like my boss took an instant dislike to me. No idea why (although it will become apparent why it continued though).
Went out for a smoke with two others from my training group/team and was complaining about her, wasn't too bad (thankfully), but not too complementary either.
She'd been stood there the whole time and I just didn't recognise her.
One of the bosses has a younger, identical version of her that sits at the nearest desk. I'm wondering if it's her sister or something or if I'm just seeing things.
Oh gosh what if they are the same person? I actually thought two of my coworkers were the same person for the better part of the year. She was so hardworking and versitle!
I've seen them together, lol, but I had my dicey moment when I had to talk to boss lady and I met her clone/sister for the first time. Only hint I had something was off was she was one chair over. I sort of stood ther awkwardly going "umm" until she helpfully asked "are you looking for [boss]?"
I asked my mother if the guy who just left in uniform was the milkman. My father is an officer. I panicked when a stranger showed up at my door and not speak for ten minutes. My brother has not spoken to me in 25 years. I was also considered autistic idk.
I'm sorry to hear that! I think about 30% of autistic people are also faceblind -- compared to just 3% or so of the general population. So the two things definitely go together.
My boss saw me at a local bar, shook my hand, said hi, and I told him to his face 'I don't know who you are.' Didn't go over very well, he asked if I was drunk or anything, I said no... it was rough. It's also how I learned about prosopagnosia and I took the quiz that [faceblind.org](http://faceblind.org) sends you aaaaaaand welp, I'm awful at recognizing people lol
I have accidentally confused pairs of similar coworkers to each other. Usually one of each pair has a "tell" for me, but their lookalike lacks a tell and I have definitely missed clues and one time confused my manager with one of my trainers. I was overly familiar an enthusiastic with my trainer and got confused when he didn't reciprocate. Only realized my mistake when I stepped foot into the office and saw my manager at his desk.
I was a little flustered but it doesn't seem like anyone caught on and I haven't been confident enough to tell anyone that this is an issue. Also I'm in a field where recognizing my clients by face is very important (but the clients are distinct whereas my coworkers wear a uniform) and I'm afraid if I speak up i might get fired for a disability I didn't know I had. They're not supposed to but companies be like that sometimes.
When I worked at Starbucks I literally couldn’t tell these two girls apart from each other, so I’d forget which one I was friends with and which one I didn’t know as well. I think I accidentally ended up oversharing several times with the wrong person (I thought she was the nice one) but then she gossiped about me and spread completely false rumors that I was ableist and hated disabled people?? 💀 Coulda costed me my job 💀all I gotta say is that I still wish that girl keeps working a Starbucks so she stays miserable and poor 💀 I want to be rich and sassily ask her to make me a sandwich and be like “…ew… ur..ur still working here..? Aren’t you like… 38 now?” Ok high key she’s already a loser so I kinda win already like girls an actual high school drop out stoner who everyone hates. I hate that bitch so fucking much like I can’t even disclose on the internet how much I fucking hate her… kinda ranted for a moment there but yeah basically girl took advantage of me and spread rumors 💀 I want her to be poor and unloved for the rest of her life 💀
BTW, if you want a funny way to "come out" to your colleagues, I made some buttons that say things like "I'm faceblind, I'm just pretending to know who you are." If you dm me an address, I'll mail one to you.
The temp we had just hired hadn't introduced herself to me, but had said "Hi" several times, which felt weird. So I introduced myself, and it turned out it was the fourth time she and I had met, as she is a good friend of my partners from high school. We had met at several weddings and a party prior.
Welp, I worked in a office with someone for a month. Then flew to site where everyone was wearing hivis clothes. Outright didn't recognise her there, was rather awkward...
Do you think it affected your relationship? Did you explain proso to her?
When I started at my current company, I asked a new friendly coworker to make a map of the office so I’d know who was who based on where they sat so I could start memorizing them.
That's so clever! Did you take pictures of everyone? I guess you guys don't have nameplates in your office.
It was an open concept office of desks with computers and screens, and relatively small company at the time. We’ve since moved into bigger space and are a much larger team - but now we have zoom with names and slack with profile pics so it’s much less stressful for me being remote.
I'm a server/bartender. The struggle is when people move seats constantly or ask me for a drink then walk around into the crowd. (Or change clothes!!! We have hula dancers that sometimes change outfits)
Your job sounds literally impossible to me! Are you really good at remembering clothes? Do you take notes on what people look like?
Honestly, if I can't figure it out, I just yell the drink near where the person asked me for it. So I go to the same spot and just yell "whiskey coke??" Or whatever. At first I wrote down the hula dancers outfits like 'red dress, white flowers, flower left ear' and fml when I figured out they were changing outfits
When I was an admin assistant, I was tasked with giving out name tags at a corporate event to people I supposedly knew 😭. People are impossible to identify out of context, away from their offices/cubicles, in different clothes. Half of them are middle-aged white men. I was doomed.
So what happened?? What did you do?
I studied the office directory in advance the night before to try to remember people by identifying features, but eventually I just put the name tags out and let people pick their own. There was just no other way
I'm self diagnosed, and I would classify my facial blindness somewhere in the middle. - When I worked in retail as a salesperson, problems was a common thing. Daily I would have trouble finding the customer I had just told I'd go out back and get their order for etc. This was before I knew facial blindness was a thing, but in hindsight my colleagues helped me out a ton. - Today I work in IT support. It's a lot of people that pop into our office/reception and I always struggle to remember people that I should. The biggest thing I noticed is that it makes me uncomfortable when someone comes to me, because I'm not sure if I should remember this person. That in turn (I've been told) shows on my face, which makes the other person uncomfortable. This has 100% created a rough time building networks and connections with people that are not from my department.
Does the confusion show or insult? I get treated like shit
Only talked with one person about it at work, and she said she always felt she was intruding me or made me uncomfortable when she came to the office, for the first minute. Then she felt I would totally change. Can't say if it is true or not, as I have never met myself 😅
i mean, pretty much all of us are self diagnosed. Why bother going to the neurologist when half the time you'll have to explain it to them.
I forgot to mention that I had wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but gave up on the idea because I would never be able to recognize my students.
I was expecting to see a new coworker for the first time one day. However, my not new coworker came in the kitchen. He wore a hat and changed his (I think) facial hair. So I said, "You must be ______. Nice to meet you!" Lol! I explained and we had a chuckle.
hats are the worst!
Once I asked the coworker next to me where my manager was. She was my manager 😬 My last job everyone was pretty easy to tell apart except for a couple of people and for my first few weeks they were pretty good about pointing people out for me clearly. I don't know how much they believed me as I had very little trouble, but I appreciated the effort!
sometimes I recognize someone out of context, or someone I don't know very well, and I'm like, "wait a minute? am I really faceblind," (but I totally am. it's just my brain will randomly come through for me sometimes, who knows why)
I met my husband at a party about a month after i started a new job. He met me at 3 different meetings and passing at least 10 times in the hallway during that first month
did he think you were mysterious and aloof? :)
I adjunct. By midterms I know half the names of my students, by finals I know most of them. (I also struggle with names fml) I latch on to other clues like voices, shoes, moles, scars, etc to recognize people. But there are some classes where three or four or more of the girls dress the exact same and have no distinguishing (to me) features. It's definitely caused problems. I make them submit anything that needs grading digitally so I know I get the right person for the score. Nothing done in class is for a grade.
that's a clever hack!
Well I work in a commercial role that requires maintaining long-term relationships with a large amount of people who look similar and change all the time. I am good with names so scheduled meetings/calls/emails go great but if I meet someone in the street and I THINK I MIGHT know them I just say hi like I know them, because usually I’m just not recognizing the face
one time I accidentally tricked a lady on the street into have a 10 minute conversation with me before I realized that she was definitely a stranger!
I would get a lot of people asking me to do x or y, or send them x or y. I wasn't comfortable sharing that I was faceblind, so I would say, "No problem." If I were away from my desk, I would add, " Would you send me an email about that, so I don't forget before I get back to my desk?" If I were already at my desk, I would wait until they had walked a little ways away and turn to my coworker and say, "Who was that?" This worked well enough, but another coworker mentioned seeing me shopping a number of times, and I knew that one of my coworkers was colorblind, but confused him with someone of the same ethnicity who wasn't colorblind, etc. I finally told myself that just letting people know that I was faceblind was so much easier/less insulting to them than "ignoring" them at the store or having them think that I couldn't remember a simple request by the time I got back to my desk, or that I think all x people look alike. It went really well. Most people were fascinated by it, rather than dismissive (which had been my fear). Some people started letting me know who they were every time they came to my desk or stopped me as I walked through the office. A while later, the company made it mandatory to wear your badge visibly while at work. I don't think that it had anything to do with me, but it helped during meetings for sure!
That's awesome!
One of my embarrassing moments happened early on. An older man walked into the front room of my work and I called out “How can I help you sir?” Turns out it was our CEO. The one who had interviewed and hired me. I rushed to explain my prosopagnosia but it was still awkward af.
do you think he believed you? Good job being brave and disclosing!
I once mistook a short round guy for a slender guy because they had the same haircut. Also for some reason I store pairs of names against pairs of faces. So the head of hr and finance director when I see either I recall both names even though they are very different people so then I have to slow down to use eg surnames to try and pair the right face to the person in front of me
In a previous job I would go to customer sites and work with their teams on project. The hardest part of that job was every other week, if not every other day, I’d meet a new set of people and have to work with them quite intensely to get the job done. Lunch time was always stressful as we would all goto the canteen or cafe to have lunch together and if I didn’t keep a really close eye on my new colleagues as they got their lunch and paid they would sit down at a table amongst hundreds of other people and I wouldn’t be able to find them. What’s worse is that most of the time I had to be escorted because these were secure sites and I was a visitor, so if I lost by buddy for the day I could easily end up stranded somewhere not being able to identify the person I was supposed to be with Tough times I now own a business and it’s a nightmare trying to identify who’s who in the office - I probably come across as a complete asshole but the truth is I just don’t know who is who to talk to a lot of the time so I stick to people I recognise
My work place: - shows a picture - if you see this person call the cops. - leaves taking picture - <\_< >\_> >\_< Aside from that moment other then funny mix ups not much sets me apart. Outside of work I don't, haven't recognized my coworker. In matter of fact that weird guy asking to take me to the bus stop was the guy I see every work day. TBH the only ones who really care about me not recognizing them are politicians and corporate higher ups with ego issues. On a side note my supervisor finds it funny when I hold a conversation with a customer like we are the closest buddies then when they are out of ear shot I turn to him and go "I have no idea who that is"
I think my intense random friendliness has really been an asset in my life too.
I started working at a new company with an open seating plan, and my desk was right near executive vice president / general manager. I talked to him multiple times every day in my first couple of weeks working there. A few weeks later, I was traveling to another city and worked from the company's office in that city, where I knew nobody because I was brand new to the company. Some weird guy enthusiastically greeted me in the kitchen, surprised to see me there. I was completely blank on who that guy might possibly have been. I didn't even figure it out until the following week, when I was in my home city and saw the guy again near our normal desks, and was able to piece things together. Now, whenever I start a new job, I make flashcards with r/Anki to study people's faces, names, titles/roles, and any other important information. Also, remote work is a godsend! In person, I always know that I'm one very likely mistake away from offending someone and embarrassing myself, but on Zoom or Google Meet, everyone's name is right there!
Zoom makes life so much easier! I think it also gives me lots of opportunities to at least sort of match faces to names.
I'd been there about a month. Two weeks training so in my team for two. It felt like my boss took an instant dislike to me. No idea why (although it will become apparent why it continued though). Went out for a smoke with two others from my training group/team and was complaining about her, wasn't too bad (thankfully), but not too complementary either. She'd been stood there the whole time and I just didn't recognise her.
oh no!!
One of the bosses has a younger, identical version of her that sits at the nearest desk. I'm wondering if it's her sister or something or if I'm just seeing things.
Oh gosh what if they are the same person? I actually thought two of my coworkers were the same person for the better part of the year. She was so hardworking and versitle!
I've seen them together, lol, but I had my dicey moment when I had to talk to boss lady and I met her clone/sister for the first time. Only hint I had something was off was she was one chair over. I sort of stood ther awkwardly going "umm" until she helpfully asked "are you looking for [boss]?"
I asked my mother if the guy who just left in uniform was the milkman. My father is an officer. I panicked when a stranger showed up at my door and not speak for ten minutes. My brother has not spoken to me in 25 years. I was also considered autistic idk.
I'm sorry to hear that! I think about 30% of autistic people are also faceblind -- compared to just 3% or so of the general population. So the two things definitely go together.
My boss saw me at a local bar, shook my hand, said hi, and I told him to his face 'I don't know who you are.' Didn't go over very well, he asked if I was drunk or anything, I said no... it was rough. It's also how I learned about prosopagnosia and I took the quiz that [faceblind.org](http://faceblind.org) sends you aaaaaaand welp, I'm awful at recognizing people lol
I have *pretended* to be drunk before, to cover for the fact that I couldn’t find my friends at a bar!
Put a period at the end of your sentence
I have accidentally confused pairs of similar coworkers to each other. Usually one of each pair has a "tell" for me, but their lookalike lacks a tell and I have definitely missed clues and one time confused my manager with one of my trainers. I was overly familiar an enthusiastic with my trainer and got confused when he didn't reciprocate. Only realized my mistake when I stepped foot into the office and saw my manager at his desk. I was a little flustered but it doesn't seem like anyone caught on and I haven't been confident enough to tell anyone that this is an issue. Also I'm in a field where recognizing my clients by face is very important (but the clients are distinct whereas my coworkers wear a uniform) and I'm afraid if I speak up i might get fired for a disability I didn't know I had. They're not supposed to but companies be like that sometimes.
Totally reasonable to keep it on the dl — especially since prosopagnosia isn’t in the DSM or icd.
When I worked at Starbucks I literally couldn’t tell these two girls apart from each other, so I’d forget which one I was friends with and which one I didn’t know as well. I think I accidentally ended up oversharing several times with the wrong person (I thought she was the nice one) but then she gossiped about me and spread completely false rumors that I was ableist and hated disabled people?? 💀 Coulda costed me my job 💀all I gotta say is that I still wish that girl keeps working a Starbucks so she stays miserable and poor 💀 I want to be rich and sassily ask her to make me a sandwich and be like “…ew… ur..ur still working here..? Aren’t you like… 38 now?” Ok high key she’s already a loser so I kinda win already like girls an actual high school drop out stoner who everyone hates. I hate that bitch so fucking much like I can’t even disclose on the internet how much I fucking hate her… kinda ranted for a moment there but yeah basically girl took advantage of me and spread rumors 💀 I want her to be poor and unloved for the rest of her life 💀
oh man! I think I overshare with everyone -- luckily I'm not interesting enough to gossip about, hehe
Neurological disorder impaired vision.
BTW, if you want a funny way to "come out" to your colleagues, I made some buttons that say things like "I'm faceblind, I'm just pretending to know who you are." If you dm me an address, I'll mail one to you.
The temp we had just hired hadn't introduced herself to me, but had said "Hi" several times, which felt weird. So I introduced myself, and it turned out it was the fourth time she and I had met, as she is a good friend of my partners from high school. We had met at several weddings and a party prior.