The Contact List from Hell

The Contact List from Hell

Let me just say up front that I am not a tech savvy person. Android, iPhone…. I don’t really care.  I do,  however, rank my laptop and my smartphone right up there with my prescription glasses as top productivity tools necessary to do my job and communicate with others. 

Recently my company built a new app for small businesses called EasyGrouper and they asked us all to install it on our phones.  “You’ll love it!  It will be a great help to you when you are out of the office,” my boss told me. 

So I added it to my list of “Things to Do Someday when I actually finish my Real Work”.  I placed this slightly behind submit my timesheets and update my profile on LinkedIn. 

Usually I wait until I really need something to get motivated to try it. And then it happened.  I was notified of a family emergency on my way to a customer location and couldn’t reach my colleague Jim to tell him that I was not going to be able to meet him there. I pulled over and scanned quickly through my contact list on my smartphone and found: 

-         Home

-         Jack

-         JACK.

-         Jack P

-         Jai

-         Jim

-         Julie

-         Julie Friend

I never put in last names, just initials, so I had no idea who the three Jack’s or two Julie’s were but I spotted Jim’s number and called right away.  Unfortunately, that Jim was the handyman I fired last year after he spilled paint down the driveway and left it there. It was an uncomfortable call.

I dug out the employee spreadsheet that I printed sometime just after I joined the company two years prior and found Jim’s office number but not his cell phone. I called the office main number but our receptionist was out to lunch.  Perfect. Great.

Then it dawned on me.  I needed access to a current employee directory – I needed EasyGrouper.   Just after getting my feverish child home from school and sending my colleague a note of apology explaining my absence, I installed EasyGrouper.  It was embarrassingly simple.

Now, at my fingertips, separated from my convoluted personal list, is the contact information of everyone I work with.  First name, last name, work phone, cell phone and email.  And all I did was download the app.    

Next week I am going to update my personal contact list.  Right after I organize my desk. 

(To learn more about the tool that helped me get organized, go to EasyGrouper.)