No socks.
Two decades later. Still remember with chagrin.
I was supporting our head of sales and our local rep on a high-level presentation. I was getting dressed in the hotel that morning after a flight the previous day. Where are the socks?
Somehow, socks didn't get into the suitcase. I had a suit, dress shirt, tie, good shoes, no socks.
Maybe I'll look rakishly fashionable. Maybe no one will notice.
Let me tell you: sales people notice these things. Our head of sales did not think I looked rakishly fashionable. I looked like a guy who forgot to put socks on. I still remember the embarrassment. I don't remember if we closed the sale.
To say I have trouble tracking things is a significant understatement. I have an unusual memory. I can recite Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride, I can sing Emily Dickinson's Sonnet 479 to the tune of the Yellow Rose of Texas. I can't go to the store for three things and reliably come back with the intended three. It was true when I was ten; it's true now.
Travel is challenging for me. I need to track considerably more than three things. I have a checklist. Socks are at the top.
And still, I can forget something every trip. Every trip is different. Too much uncertainty. Often the things I forget, were in the queue to be taken, but If I get interrupted mid sequence, I can lose the sequence.
Then I have to get it all back. One of you reading this may have found two charger cords at your work table after my visit.
Besides the comprehensive checklist, I relieve a significant portion of the cognitive load with a suitcase pre-packed with the basics. One of them is a nice belt I got in the Mall of Dubai because I forgot to pack one for that trip.
My carry bag has multiple compartments which, again, make for easier inventory of the contents. My favorite is a clip to secure my keys, helpful because my previous set I believe got dropped onto a street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while I was fumbling with change.
Those of you who know me are recognizing this as a consequence of my position on the extreme end of the Distinctly Associative preference. On reading the draft for this post, one of my colleagues, who has talked other times about the challenges of his strong Sequential preference, said he gets pleasure and energy from packing his bag. I'm grateful for him and several others in our organization who can hold a grip on things that are slippery for me.