The Boredom of Ramfree17

Half-baked tag

Feb 17

ErinGarbage, Work 2 Comments

I like freebies may it be useful or a one-time quirky curiosity thing. I admittedly have a weird standard on what counts as curious which sometimes explain the amount of trash in my storage spaces. My wife calls them junk, I call them as my collection of “probably usefuls”. 😀

I also have this limit on what I would like to get. To the probable disbelief of those who know me, I can say no to a freebie especially if it fails to rouse my interest. One such thing is the freebie that the company hyped and gave its employees: a dog tag.

Not the actual dogtag freebie

Yes, a dog tag. And no ordinary dog tag like what is in the image above. The dog tag is engraved with a list of qualities that the company wants everybody to be governed with in their everyday life; to breathe and live so to speak. The thought is sweet but I wonder what kind of crack is being smoked by the person who conceived this “promotion.” This is for the same company who revamped the design of its electronic badges because it doesn’t want the badges to have a distinct link to the company as a form of security against lost and forged badges.

The day they sent out the invite, Mike and the others in the Bench project was asking if I was going to get my dog tag. I gave them a big “HELL NO!” for the simple reason that I don’t see any practical nor interesting use for it. I like war video games like the Medal of Honor series which revolves about war campaigns but I am not fanatical enough to consider dog tags as a cool accessory. I also don’t have any dog that I can attach the tag. 😛 I am also trying to minimize the weight of my electronic badge since its weight alone is already noticeable. I gave a tongue-in-cheek retort that maybe we can collect all the dog tags in the project team and sell them in the junkyard for twenty pesos and buy ourselves two sticks of banana-que. 😛 Nope, I am not going to go into long queues to redeem that.

Early last week a company memo was sent to the email system which made me drop my jaws with laughter. The memo was warning against selling the tags and giving them away to non-company employed persons (e.g., friends, family, etc.). Much as I find it funny that somebody had the cajones to actually sell the tags, it kills me to think that somebody actually bought the craptag. /lol

And then here is the final kicker: I was told that the tags, like the electronic badges, should not be displayed when outside the company premises as they provide a direct link to the company. They should be hidden when going outside.

Yeah right, like I would go through the hassle of queuing for the tags, weighing down my e-badge, and then remind myself to keep it hidden from plain sight. I wonder if the organizers of that promotion really believed that people would wear them in company premises willingly. I can’t figure out any reason though but there must be something out there even if they are beyond normal reasoning.

Maybe they should have given out board magnets. Or maybe paper weights. Or maybe something useful like a shirt, notebook or bookmarks.

[update] Curiously enough, another memo is sent out regarding this illustrious freebie. It seems the voice of the disgruntled is strong. The memo clarifies that the dogtag can be worn outside office premises but should be on a separate chain than the e-badge. The rationale is that the dogtag, which displays the company name, will link the e-badge back to the company if it gets lost. That makes sense, sort of. The wife makes a strong argument against that logic: but WE KNOW that badge is from your company. Apparently taking out the company name and colors from the badge will prevent outsiders from putting two and two together and arrive at the conclusion that persons wearing badges coming out of offices with big company logo is not affiliated with the company. Yeah, that makes absolute perfect sense. In the ideal world, everybody hides the badge every time they go out.

Oh, I got a deed here for the Guadalupe bridge for anybody willing to buy it. I am selling it cheap. 😀

ciao!