This is why at various jobs I'm always the person to take phone calls about directions. I start out with what direction they're coming from and give them street names, approximate distances, and landmarks. For example, get off the highway on Main Street, you'll turn right at the light going east. You'll go about half a mile, you'll pass two gas stations on the left. Turn left at 5th Street, there's a giant Starbuck's there. Stay on 5th Street through a few doglegs, it'll turn itself into Lane Road. We're about a mile down Lane Road on the right, here's our address. If you get to 21st Street, where the giant pink building is, you've gone too far.
Heck, when I worked at the outdoor store right off the highway, I memorized the exit numbers for both of the major highways that customers could take in. I'd tell them "Get off at Exit 271, Streetname, and turn right." People were amazed that I could remember that, but they forgot that I lived across town and used to take the major highway in to work before the second highway ended the massive construction project. I knew the exits because I took them every day, and coming from the opposite direction literally meant changing if they turned left or right when they got off the highway, that was it. And I have a mind for trivia and miscellanea like that.
