My Poor Badge

It finally happened. After two years of going through a lot of plastic badge holders, watching my badge deteriorate, pulling it out from under books, pens, makeup, more books, papers in smitherines, and after punching holes where they were not meant to be punched, my Church employee badge bit the dust. For some odd reason, after the first picture is taken, they will never ever ever ever take another picture of you. Employees who have been around for forty years still have the first picture taken. Okay, so they didn't have those badges forty years ago, but whenever they got badges, that's when the old employees' pictures were taken. Unfortunately, I didn't know about this stubbornness of the badgers. My first week, it was really frustrating not to have a badge. I couldn't get into the right doors, I couldn't park where I needed to, no one could check for my name, etc.

It so happened that the I.D. office was closed the first few days of my employment. The first day it was open, I didn't care what I looked like. I rushed over there, sat down, and voila! I had a badge. Not very professional. Pasty (almost as pale as the white background). Greasy hair pulled back in a pony tail. I'm not sure what it is about people wanting their I.D. badges to look really nice, even to the extent of looking better than the normal day. Isn't the point of I.D. to look like yourself so your identity can be verified? Nevertheless, the traditional want of a good picture came back to haunt me. I found it funny that my mom got all spiffed up to get her gym pass, but that's different. It's the gym. You're never going to go in there dressed up. Unless you're getting your pass picture taken. Anyway, attached you'll see the badge that I so heavily abused (I don't know why it's sideways, it's not on my computer!). Fellow employees would ask me what in the world I was doing to my badge. I think it was just the fact that it was in my backpack all the time, with all the other things thrown in there. Whenever I would take everything out and turn the bag upside down, pieces of paper worn to fuzziness rained out, crumbled like Egyptain scrolls.

Well, I went and got a new badge. Not because the old one had broken. I kept it broken for a long time. I got the new one because the old one stopped being recognized by the scanners at the doors. I joked with the lady at the I.D. office that I probably had the worst badge she'd ever seen (I had to trade in the old one). She thought I meant the picture. I don't think it's the worst, just not what I would have picked if I were thinking and not desperate to get into some place. I saw the camera. I saw the software open on her screen for badging. I told her I would pay her. She must get that a lot. She just ignored me and handed me my badge. Well, we'll see how long this one lasts.