It was a Dr. Phil release day yesterday: I had to work through some issues and throw out a passle of old badges/badge holders from several years worth of conferences. It wasn't easy, because they were somewhat like a, uh, badge of honor, but they were pretty useless and adding a whole lot of clutter to my home office workspace.
What was the point in keeping them around, anyway?
SharePoint Connections? Moderately lame conference where I met some great folks, but why keep that badge around?
MVP Summit? Outstanding networking where I met some great folks, but when will I use that holder again?
Six or eight or more Day of .NET conferences from here in our kickass Heartland district? Outstanding conferences where I met a lot of great folks, but do I really need those holders in my desk?
DevLink? John Kellar's amazing baby down in Nashville where I met a lot of great folks and had my opinion of one particular person turned around 180 degrees to positive from negative, but I'm not going to use that notepad in that holder anyway.
CodeMash? Oi. My own baby via group parenthood together with Brian Prince, Jason Gilmore, Dianne Marsh, Jason Follas, Jeff and Josh, and a whole lot of other great folks. Toughest to let go of, but then your own kids always are.
See something common between all those? Great folks I met or worked with at them. The badge holders don't have anything to do with those ongoing relationships. All they were was workspace clutter adding to my mental fugue.
I'm feeling better now.
Maybe I should start a group. "Hi, my name's Jim and I'm a badgeaholic. It's been one week since my last badge collecting incident."
4 comments:
I still have most of my badges from over the years. They're all hanging on one clothes hanger in the back of my closet... Out of the way for now, but still around if I ever get a real office again in the future (where they can be displayed, hopefully in some fashion that is not tacky).
Ha! So I'm not the only one. I keep mine just because I have a great time at most of them, and it's a pretty compact memento as souvenirs go. Throwing out the plastic holder part and just keeping the paper insert helps.
My name is Sarah, and I'm a badgeaholic.
I've taken my badges to work, where they decorate my cube. I'm almost afraid to see what will happen when I run out of cube space for them.
I am the worst kind of badgeaholic. I keep them, but not in any organized fashion. They might end up in a drawer, on my dresser, in the closet, on my desk. Wherever they land. I couldn't throw them all out even if I wanted to, because I don't know where there all located. Although it does bring back a bit of nostalgia when I stumble across one.
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