Just walking back to my desk at work and I see that sometime today somebody swapped out my old printed-on-a-paper-strip name plate for a real (carved? engraved? not sure of the right terminology) one. I’ve been here, let’s see, 20 months I think? I was just thinking the other day how odd it was that people who’ve been here for way less time had permanent name plates and I didn’t. Somehow it makes me feel a tiny bit more secure, knowing that they’ve invested in it. Like they aren’t going to fire me any time soon.
Congrats! That’s a nice little rite of passage.
When I became a magistrate, I had to wait for the end of my probationary period (90 days, IIRC) to get a nice, heavy, brass-on-wood nameplate to put in front of me when I’m holding court. Felt good to get it at last.
Way to go! I worked for my old company for a bit over seven years before I had a job that rated a name plate. In fact, at one point, I worked in one of the units that engraved the name plates, using a router setup with templates for the individual letters. Somewhere in a box, I have the accumulated name plates of my entire working life.
Only 20 months? I’m envious! I’d been here for close to six years before anyone thought of getting me a proper nameplate.
Maybe they wanted to be absolutely sure I was sticking around as our nameplates are fancy - the comany logo is in two colors, and the names are done in a third color.
Of course, getting one does not make you fireproof. At a previous job, they made up a traditional engraved nameplate for me, then dropped me like a used diaper one week later.
Well of course they got you a name plate! The PTB don’t want to have to look it up before they blame you for ___________ (insert issue du jour). It’s a management time saver, really.
I hope your not going to get all uppity.
An engraved nameplate? Mine is a computer-printed laminated sheet of paper with a magnet on the back. Strange thing is, it was here when I arrived (as a temp, even!), but people hired after I was have had to wait months to get even that. The lady who made them just retired, though, and the new person hasn’t paid enough attention to the old ones to make new ones look the same (wrong font, not using all capital letters, etc.)
In our company a name plate doesn’t mean squat.
About two years ago they bought one for every single person. Thay hang on the side of the office doors or on the side of your cube. The helpdesk people all got one and some look sort of funny as they don’t really fit right on their stations as some are displayed vertically while others are horizontal. Even the mail room guys have there names displayed on the mail room door.
Last three people they let go from our division were a 20 year, 12 year and a 10 year employee.
They just pop off the face plate. It is sort of depressing really to see so many empty name plates hanging on cubes and office walls.
I still use the first one I got from my first assignment almost 20 years ago. It is lettered on card stock which is inserted into what I figure is a standard GSA traingular wooden holder, with a strip of plastic that slides over it and is a little shorter than the holder. I remeber being distinctly touched when it was first given to me and I’ve never felt the need to have anything fancier or more pretentious. If I ever reach the top of my profession, it will stand proudly on my desk as it has for the last 19+ years.
They have laid off so many people where I work that people “collect” the nameplates of the people who have been let go in their department and display the nameplates. Sort of like a macabre nameplate cemetery. I have seen desks with upwards of a dozen nameplates of ex-employees on them.
I make engraved nameplates for a living, and I’m always amused by the people who buy them for friends and relatives who really don’t have an engraved-nameplate sort of job. Especially when they say to just put their first name on it. Fortunately that doesn’t happen too often.
I have like 4 of them. Well, one might not count, it doesn’t have a name, just the title “Disaster Specialist”.