Ö÷²¥´óÐã ID Badge
It's a funny thing the Ö÷²¥´óÐã ID badge. By glancing at another's - swinging round their neck, or left strewn on a desk (more on that later) you can carbon date their career at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã. Grey hair once black? Maybe fifteen years in the business? A once carefree expression now worry-worn etc.
In our building, (Broadcasting House, in London), the same piece of plastic will let me into the revolving doors but it will not let me through the swing-ey doors (which I have to use when I carry my folding bike). The reason? "Terrorism risk", they said. "Something to do with hinges...?" I asked. I am still not sure. And, as with all work ID passes, a bad photo can provide a great canteen-lunch tease-a-thon. If you and your colleagues are at a conversational loose end, that is.
But the really marvellous thing about the Ö÷²¥´óÐã ID badge is the access it grants into other people's lives, into subjects you were once ignorant of, and areas you have never visited. That is how over the last week or so I have found myself sitting at a kitchen table behind a post-office in rural Suffolk discussing the extraordinary theft of the village's water and on the top floor of Harrods in Knightsbridge, drinking leaf tea on satin cushions with a 'superstar' perfumer. We were discussing the regulation of oak moss, amongst other things. (Watch this space...it affects you more than you think!)
Wearing the Ö÷²¥´óÐã badge suits a nosey parker like me, who likes the sound of her own voice (a lot) but who also quite likes to listen to other people talk about things I had never even thought of. Who knew - for instance - that there were courses for would-be-hoteliers on how to overbook their hotels? Not me. Maybe I am naïve, but then I seem to be in good company. Listen next week for the case studies I have found who have been left fed up in hotel receptions this summer. In that instance the ID badge and the privileges it affords may help to inform us all a little.
As for the leaving of ID's 'strewn on desks' (see above).. It taught me an invaluable life lesson... for on top of learning about the potential health risks of basil in men's perfume, this week I also realised that a discarded plastic badge is not only a ripe opportunity for ribbing (yes, I do look like a grumpy convict in mine). But it can also get lost easily. This means both revolving and swing-ey doors are suddenly slammed in my face. Not to mention tete a tetes with fragranced gentlemen and another cup of Lapsang Souchong.
Catherine Carr is a reporter on You & Yours
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