I Had 487 Contacts and Nobody to Call

Pinned Five People

I had 487 contacts in my phone. I remembered that number for three years, the way you remember a locker combination you never use but are afraid to forget.

In my first week at my first real job, the department went out for dinner. I sat at the far end of a long table, next to a marketing director from a partner company. He handed me his card. I scanned his QR code. He said, “Let’s stay in touch.” I said, “Absolutely.” That night I added eleven people. On the subway home, I edited each contact note to read “Company + Title + Name,” as if I were labeling drawers in a filing cabinet. I thought I was building something.

After that, there were more dinners. Team-building retreats. Salons. Product launches. Annual industry conferences. I never said no. If someone organized a gathering, I went. If someone asked me to fix a PowerPoint, I fixed it. If someone needed a package picked up, I picked it up. If someone needed company while working late, I stayed. My phone buzzed, and I answered. Someone in a group chat asked a question, and I replied. I thought these were favors that would someday be returned.

One Friday afternoon, my boss dropped a competitive analysis on my desk. It was due Monday. I didn’t have enough data. I thought of a “friend” I’d met at an industry salon the month before. He worked in marketing at a competitor. We’d had drinks. He’d said, “If you ever need anything, just ask.” I sent, “You around?” He replied, “?” I explained what I needed. He replied, “That’s not really convenient.” I tried three more people. Two didn’t answer. One said, “I’ll ask around,” and then there was nothing. I stayed until three in the morning, digging through filings, annual reports, and scraps of data, stitching together a report. On Monday, I handed it in. Then I sat at my desk and scrolled through my contacts, from top to bottom. 487 people. The number I could actually ask for help was under five. Of those five, three were former colleagues. Two were college friends.

I stared at the screen. My stomach burned. The all-nighter was part of it. So was the realization that I had gotten the order wrong.

I had treated relationships like items to collect. A like here, a greeting there, always being available, and eventually people would show up when I needed them. But people remembered that I was easy to ask. No one remembered what I could solve.

A new manager joined our department. In his first meeting, he said, “Stop thinking about who you know. Start thinking about why anyone needs to know you.” It sounded cold. I didn’t like it. But then I started watching Xiao Chen.

Xiao Chen sat diagonally across from me. She didn’t go to dinners. She skipped team-building when she could. She had fewer than 200 contacts. She had five pinned group chats: industry data, writing, former colleagues, client coordination, family. Every Friday afternoon, she sent an industry brief to about twenty people. It wasn’t a mass send. Each message opened differently. If someone replied, she recorded their needs in a spreadsheet. If someone asked her for data, she sent a template. If someone asked her to rewrite copy, she marked three problems and didn’t write it for them. She helped people without immediately asking for anything back. Once, a client needed a competitor comparison at the last minute. She finished it in half an hour and sent an email with risks, alternatives, and a timeline laid out clearly. When the project ended, the client asked for her by name next time. Later, when she changed jobs, that same client reached out to work with her.

I started copying her. The first time, a former colleague posted on social media looking for a supplier. I happened to know one. I sent a private message with the contact and a few notes about what to watch out for. I didn’t ask for anything. Two weeks later, he introduced me to a client. I put my phone down and went to the break room to wash my cup. It was a company anniversary cup. A piece of paint had chipped off the handle.

The second time, someone invited me to a dinner. I said no. That night, I finished a set of industry notes and sent them to ten people. Three replied. One asked me to get coffee. The coffee shop was in the basement of an office building. He ordered an Americano. I ordered a latte. He asked what I’d been working on. I said I was organizing data templates. He said his company needed that too. We talked for forty minutes. When we left, he threw his half-finished Americano into the trash. The lid wasn’t on tight. A little coffee splashed onto the rim of the bin.

The third time, I wanted to ask a senior colleague about switching roles. I sent a message: who I was, what I wanted to ask, roughly twenty minutes, and if it wasn’t convenient, I completely understood. He replied, “Busy lately.” I replied, “Understood. Whenever works for you.” A month later, he messaged me first. He’d seen something I wrote and wanted to talk. We spoke on the phone for half an hour. At the end, he said, “That question you asked earlier. Actually, you can break it down like this.” I wrote it down. The pen was from a hotel. It was almost out of ink.

It didn’t always go smoothly. Once, I went to another industry cocktail party. I exchanged thirty business cards. On the ride home, I sat in the back of a taxi and felt sick. I spread the cards across my lap and looked at them one by one. Many names didn’t match faces. I thought about that first night on the subway, editing contact notes. I asked the driver to pull over. I got out and threw up. Nothing came up. I just dry-heaved twice. When I got home, I threw the cards into a drawer and didn’t enter them into my phone. The next day, I left a chat group. Before I left, someone was sending a red packet. I didn’t grab it.

One Saturday, I had nothing to do. I scrolled through my contacts, from A to Z. Hundreds of people. I didn’t know who I could ask to eat with me. Finally, I went downstairs to a noodle shop. The owner asked, “No cilantro, right?” I said yes. The noodles came. I ate two bites and got a call. It was a client I’d worked with before, asking about a data definition. I said I’d check when I got home. He said no rush, Monday was fine. I finished the noodles, went home, looked it up, and sent it to him. He replied, “Got it, thanks.” Nothing else.

After that, I made three rules for myself. First, every week, send useful information to three people, not a mass message. Second, every quarter, have coffee with someone I’ve actually worked with, and talk about a specific problem, not gossip. Third, write professional notes in public documents so people can find me. I stopped counting friends. I stopped being available all the time.

Half a year later, I left my company. Six people reached out on their own. Two became partners on a new project. One asked if I could do data consulting. One asked if I’d be interested in writing a column. I took one. Another asked me to dinner. We went to the noodle shop. The owner asked, “No cilantro, right?” He said he wanted cilantro. I said I didn’t.

My contact number didn’t change. Still over four hundred. I pinned five people. Last night, someone sent, “You around?” I replied, “Yes, what’s up?” They said, “Nothing. I just saw what you wrote and found it useful.” I put my phone down and went to water the pothos. A former colleague had left it behind. I’d kept it for two years. The leaves were a little yellow. I cut one off and threw it in the trash. In the trash was an Americano lid, from the coffee shop yesterday.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. The five pinned contacts are the people who stayed when I stopped performing. The rest is a list I scroll past. The number is still 487. I don’t remember why I ever thought that mattered.