Hoist by my own Lanyard

[steepholm]

I find the sight of people wearing lanyards depressing, especially en masse. When I passed my son's old school at lunchtime today, and saw scores of pupils (and some staff) wandering out for a break, 90% of whom had lanyards dangling from their necks like so many cow bells, a huge distaste rose within me. I bless the child who took hers off and stuffed it in her pocket. She may have been doing it for safety reasons rather than to reclaim her individuality from the corporate Borg, but whatever the reason the gesture warmed my desiccated old heart.

At my old university, I saw the lanyard habit spread inexorably as the years passed, especially once cards became mandatory for swipe access at every door and floor, but I never considered keeping my own card anywhere but my pocket or purse, out of sight. There's something feudal about wearing your school's livery (or your employer's).

I'm reminded of an old Charlie Brown cartoon (I suppose they're all old by now) in which a neighbour explains that his father has renamed all his children with numbers. "Is it his way of protesting against the system?" asks Charlie Brown. "No, it's his way of giving in."

The truth is, my gut despises the lanyard wearers.

Before I run to Portmeirion shouting "I am not a number!", I should add that I realise my gut's reaction is over the top. It comes (as they say) from a very young place. I'm particularly suspicious of it because it feels much like the visceral resistance I used to have to having my fingerprints taken or retina scanned, which prevented me from going to the States for almost a decade. That dissipated like magic when I transitioned, and therein lies a big clue, I think. As a trans person in the climate of a small town in the '70s secrecy was instinctive, and it's easy now to forget how that secrecy dominated my first 44 years. So, perhaps my distaste for seeing people happily proclaiming their identities on lanyards has to do with that - it's a kind of retrospective jealousy dressed as individualism?

I still don't like them, though.

Comments

[cmcmck]

They bug me too so you aren't alone.

[legionseagle]

Of course, because my security pass is on a lanyard I don't have to take my handbag every time I go to the loo, I don't leave it on my desk under paperwork and I can open the door back from the kitchen when I've got both hands full of hot drinks when it's my turn to get the coffees in from the kitchen. I'd never realised it proclaimed me a brainwashed tool of the Man and an emanation of the corporate Borg before. Thanks for enlightening me.

[steepholm]

If I don't trust my own gut, I certainly won't ask anyone else to.

[legionseagle]

Your untrustworthy gut doesn't give you a free pass to land a punch in other people's. And the term "despise" is a gut-punch. Ok, you can say it's just words, it's over-the-top rhetoric, it's banter or whatever, but I don't have to like it.

[steepholm]

Indeed you don't. I don't like it myself, which is why I tried to analyse where that feeling came from. That's one function of a journal (mine, at least).

The final line of my entry refers not of course to lanyard wearers but to lanyards, and certainly I find many aspects of corporate (including educational) workplaces fundamentally inhumane, in a way that's epitomised by that object. The fact that you need a security pass to go to the loo or to make yourself a cup of coffee, for example, strikes me as suboptimal in all kinds of ways. Conversely, I very much admire the fact that you trust your colleagues enough to be able to leave your handbag unguarded while you do so.

[legionseagle]

We are in a shared building and indeed a shared floor on the building, in a central location in Manchester. Accordingly, there's a daily helping of drama, usually harmless enough, but from time to time involving drug- or alcohol-fuelled rages (some of the local dealers occasionally use the ramp to our carpark for commercial purposes), collapses, punch ups and stabbings. As a result, we have a security pass for the street door and one for the office itself. The loos and kitchen are in the common parts, so between the two areas controlled by passes.

We are a law firm and therefore have a good deal of client confidential material on the premises. We also get the odd person turning up with a major grudge, as you can imagine. Hence tight security requirements.

As a woman who works late occasionally, I'm very happy that the pass+lanyard system gives me a means of passing in and out through the front door to the well-lit (if occasionally lively) street, as opposed to all the systems I've encountered in the past which involve going out through the carpark into the back alleys behind the firms (some firms can afford 24 hour security, but small offices don't usually have that luxury.)

[steepholm]

That does indeed make a lot of sense.

[legionseagle]

The big advantage of a lanyard for my security pass, given I'm a disorganised sort, and this one has been proved by actual experiment, is that should I happen to be the last person in the office, if I have to make a mad dash to the loo I'm not at risk of being caught locked out of the office without money or a phone.

ETA I forgot to mention that a secondary function of lanyards is that they're delightfully unisex and hang (usually) in a reassuringly asexual place. Most name badges without lanyards either assume a jacket clip or that you'll be happy shoving a safety pin through the fabric of one's top, which if the top is a robust shirt cotton is safe enough, but if it's an expensive silk jersey is anything but. Likewise clips which assume belts (useless for dresses) or pockets (useless for practically all feminine garments, unless your workplace tolerates jeans.) Even if one is wearing a jacket for the irritating clip, that still brings the name-badge up to breast height, giving those sort of blokes the excuse to lean over and leer. Whereas if you're wearing a conference badge on a lanyard, one can bring it up to his eye level, and keep control of the interaction.

[thistleingrey]

Yes, my security badge came with a belt-loop clip with short, retractable line (no decoration or name on the badge itself). Fortunately, it's congruent with my current workplace's encouragement of jeans and casual slacks. A few colleagues have undone the line part and clipped theirs to lanyards....

[legionseagle]

My previous security pass was the belt-loop clip/retractable line sort.