

Ask HN: Which large companies don't have name badges? - diminium

I never want to wear a name badge for work again.<p>Which companies have no or optional name badges?
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7402
There is a special event that happens in the lifetime of a growing company.
That event is the first time a person walks into an office, picks up a
computer, and leaves without anyone particularly wondering why someone they
have never seen before has just walked off with a computer.

At least one place I worked, that was when they decided to get everyone
official company name tags.

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minimaxir
Why do you so vehemently not want to wear a name badge, if you don't mind me
asking?

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mrkmcknz
If you have to wear a name badge, chances are no one actually cares what your
name is.

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phaus
If you work in a building with a few thousand people in it, badges are the
most obvious way to implement a functional physical security policy. It has
nothing to do with your employer's feelings towards you.

Every business that large has valuable data. If your business has valuable
data, there is someone out there trying to steal it.

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jfoster
Which companies do have name badges? Is that actually common? It seems
incredible to me that any would require employees to wear name badges unless
they were customer-facing. (Eg. retail)

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bskap
Microsoft does. Our badges serve as keys to get into the buildings. We can
also store money on them for use at the cafeterias.

They aren't really there to tell people your name. Most people wear them on
their waist so you can't read them. But they do identify you as someone who
belongs, so security can chase you out if you don't have one.

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jfoster
Got it. When I read "name badge" I was thinking of just a name rather than a
security badge.

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onlyup
Can you name some large companies that DO make you wear name badges?

Why not just put it in your pocket and introduce yourself with your name when
you meet people? Unless your manager is anal about it, it seems like it would
go unnoticed.

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plastic_tumblr
Large companies do it primarily for security. I like to feel safe at work.

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dear
No name tag = Unsafe? Police state?

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dangrossman
Lots of us work or have worked at technology companies. The badges open doors
so there's an auditable log of who comes in and out, and strangers can't come
in at all. They're not for people to read your name. There's virtually no data
center worldwide where you don't have at least that amount of security --
PCIDSS says you can't process credit card payments on servers in facilities
without auditable access control like that, for one.

I, for one, don't want some random person on the street to be able to walk
into a Microsoft office with their laptop, and be able to plug into the same
private network Windows Live ID servers run on. With 90k employees, it's not
like anyone else would know if that person belonged there or not.

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a_bonobo
Work for a university in bioinformatics, depending on the building you're in
you don't need name-badges. I don't wear a name badge either.

Only if you're in some lab environment do you need badges to open security
doors.

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srehnborg
Is this really that much of a deal breaker?

