ID The Schizophrenic Identity Badge

Hi, I’m an identity badge, or at least that’s who I think I am although I’m beginning to develop schizophrenic tendencies as I get older because many people, including my family, now call me ID badge. I don’t know about you but speaking personally I don’t go for all these abbreviations and I would like to state here and now that I do not like being called ID badge. However, that's families for you.

I'm actually part of a fairly large family of badges; there's my brother name badge, my sister identity name badge, my second sister conference badge and my youngest brother staff name badge.

There was a time when there was just me and my brother name badge. And that seemed to say it all because as an identity badge I showed everybody my company, my name and sometimes my rather grandiose title.

But my brother didn’t bother with anything else other than his name which is why he is called a name badge. However, I’ll let you into a little secret about my brother name badge, because even when he exhibits his name it’s not always his real name. He sometimes calls himself by a different name entirely and occasionally dispenses with a name altogether and styles himself as Consumer Service Operative or some such title which does not mean an awful lot.

As I said earlier, apart from my brother I’ve got lots of relatives in the badge making business although I have to confess that some of them have delusions of grandeur. My sister was not happy being a plain identity badge and took to calling herself an identity name badge which seemed to satisfy her ego until she got married to an executive with a real high-powered job as a corporate executive. So after a little while and in view of her new status in life she became a corporate identity name badge which satisfied her ego for a little while because she thought she was rather a special person with a title like that.

Unsurprisingly this new title of corporate identity name badge did not satisfy my sister for long and as her husband climbed the corporate ladder she acquired more of the good things in life and finally got another new title of corporate identity employee name badge…and that’s far cry from her original moniker of name badge.

But she’s not the only one in the family who is not satisfied with being a plain ordinary identity badge or ID badge if you get sloppy. Another sister, it always seems to be a sister, entered the world of business and spent a lot of her time at seminars and became known as a conference badge which didn’t last long as she wanted something a bit more up-market. So after much thought she decided on a double-barrelled approach and became a conference identity badge which she thought much more impressive than just being called a conference badge.

As well as sisters my younger brother is called staff name  badge; he’s called this to keep some sort of symmetry in the family as you’ll remember that  his sister was originally called name badge before she became successful. Well, staff name badge does not have any of his sister’s tendencies for grandstanding and shortened his name for a while and he was known as staff ID badge rather than staff name badge. However this did not last long as he wasn’t too keen on being an ID badge much less a staff ID badge. But the final insult came to him when he was referred to as an employee ID badge; well, I ask you, what a come down form staff to employee.

Well that’s the family history of me a humble identity badge and my sisters and brothers name badge, conference badge and staff name badge. In another article I’ll tell you about my relatives such as company badge, employee badge, engraved badge, domed badge, personalised name badge and window badge; but that’s another story.