Pride: It's another word for Shame

While I had some down time at work the other day, I was leafing through a discarded ID badge catalogue. There were ID tags and lanyards and card stock and all the other standard crap you’d expect to find. I was appalled by some of the cutesy badge designs, and mildly embarrassed for the catalogue models. Those poor bastards forced to wear an American flag-themed lanyard and smile, as if to say, “These kicky designs increased my productivity by 10%.”

Still, the whole thing was pretty uninteresting until I got to the last page. Lapel pins. Motivational lapel pins. The actual headline on the page was “Pins Display Pride. Especially when your team wears them on their lanyards!”


The gold star made sense in a moronic sort of way, as did the “Excellence” and “Safety Award” pins. However, there was a series of enamel pins that were just moronic. What the hell sort of person is going to wear a lightbulb-shaped pin that says “Way to Glow!”? Or one that actually says “Shining Star”? The one I found most disturbing was a green hand that said “High 5”. This is not a pin that you wear in a professional work environment. This is a pin that you wear when your TGIFriday's manager is bitching at you about wearing the required number of pieces of flair.

If that's a display of pride, I think I'll stick with shame.