Badge of Honor

This is the first job in my entire life that has required that I wear a badge. I've worked a lot of jobs in my life, and somehow I have managed to avoid uniforms and badges of any kind, which I am rather proud of. I'm not really a uniform kind of girl, either for wearing myself or on other people. If I had to choose a uniform that I like, I would have to say it's the white lab coats that the Clinique ladies wear. I love how it makes them look like they are chemists of lotion, or doctors of liquid eyeliner. Also, it's gutsy. You've got three inches of make-up spackled on your face, and you're wearing a white coat? That is a recipe for disaster if ever I saw one. It always makes me think of that episode of Kate and Allie, where Kate buys a white suit that she can't afford, intending to wear it to the ballet and then return it the next day, and then a ballerina falls into her and leaves the perfect impression of a made-up face on the back of the suit. The moral? Make up and white coats do not mix. Take heed, Clinique. But I digress.

I realize that wearing a badge in a library is important. It identifies you to the patrons as a PWA (Person With Authority), and it even has the magical magnetic strip thing that scans you into the building and into the top secret restricted library back rooms, where we all gather to plot the destruction of the world through free books and media for everyone, like the godless pinkos that we are. So I guess I should like my badge. But I don't. Badgley Mischka, yes. Badgely Librarian, no. First of all, the day that I was told I had to have my picture taken for this badge, I happened to be wearing a rockin' peasant top from Lucky Brand in red, yellow, and brown stripes. It looks cool in person, but now my digitized, pixelated photo looks like I am wearing some sort of clown collar. The Lucky Brand shirt did not translate, dig? Second, the wear and tear on the badge as it is used to scan myself into work every day has caused there to be a couple of big white scratches in the badge that make it look like someone has purposely X'd over my face. White X face with a clown collar. Are you picturing this? The other thing about this badge is that there isn't really a jaunty way to wear it. I know, it's probably futile to try and act like this thing is some sort of accessory, but I can't help but want it to look sort of nice. I refuse to wear one of those cloth necklace things around my neck with my badge on it. I know some people do that, and they also adorn this thing with their "I read banned books" buttons and such, but whoa, that is just one heartbeat away from Flair, people. I am not doing Flair, just like I am not wearing those rubber spiral bracelets that people keep their keys on. A key is not a charm for a charm bracelet. Only Janet Jackson in Rhythm Nation can wear key accessories. Only Janet! Are you listening, Alicia? So I am resigned to clipping my badge onto the lower left edge of my shirts each day, so that it rests right there on my hip. It's the sexiest I can make that damn badge.

The final thing I hate about my badge is the fact that, under my X'd out face, it says in big bold letters: STAFF. That's it. Just STAFF. This causes me to hear this joke at least three times a week: "Hey there, Staff! How's it going, Staff?" or some other variation of the same. I guess you'd call that me getting badgered.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl