# Name Tags By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-02-02 Outside of mixer events, it's rare within organizations for employees to have name tags. Maybe if you are lucky, the person you are talking to will have their name on the cubicle. But even this is exceeding rare. Even video conference calls only show someone's name if you intentionally look for it. After a few seconds, it quickly goes away. When you call a customer service line, it's unlikely that a person will give their real name or any name at all. If they do give their name, do you bother remembering it? In all likelihood, you do not. Do you remember your server's name from dinner last night or even provided their name? It's an interesting cultural statement that we have accepted to forego or minimalize the names of people. This is partly because of convenience and the number of daily interactions we have with people. Knowing and remembering someone's name is reserved for only close relationships. Everyone else is just a face and cog in the machine. This is a problem. When we stop seeing people as people, we are capable of horrific things. There are too many examples to recount. As superficial as it may seem, names have meaning and establish a person as a human. The lack of names not only impacts how we treat the "workers," but how the "workers" treat us. If you are just a nameless person, you aren't you. People who wear masks are also capable of horrific things. So, perhaps we should all wear name tags to be reminded of each's other humanity and accountability to each other. This won't stop the liars and cheats, but in a world full of strangers, perhaps these subtle reminders can make society just a little bit kinder and sympathetic to the human condition we are all facing. #### Related Items [[Solidarity]] [[Society]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Culture]] [[Work]] [[The Human Condition]]