day 214: Name Tags

When I was in high school working in a restaurant, the joke was that if we were still in a job where we were wearing name tags by the time we were 30 years old, we were in real trouble. That was back when we didn't know any better and we worried that we would end up spending the rest of our working days completing the line, "would you like to have fries with that?" I remember being just over 30 years old and wearing my Pizza Hut name tag with pride as I would go visit restaurants across America as one of Pizza Hut's executives. As I would put on my name tag, I chuckled at the thought from my adolescence. Even today when I attend some of the best functions and meetings of Boards, etc. we have our name tags that we wear. I don't think twice about it anymore because a name tag is so helpful. I worked with a CEO who was not good with names and I wished for him that we all had to wear name tags or visible badges. He would stand in the elevator with the same people that he did each day and everyone knew him but he didn't know their names. What was lost on him was the power of knowing someone's name and calling them out when he saw them. The pride that wells up inside someone when a CEO or a manager, really anyone within the company, knows them by their name is a pride and feeling of recognition that goes far and is long lasting. We go through the motions so often with each other in the workplace that we sometimes forget that the basics like calling someone by their name is important. I am guilty of not doing it too, but I have tried over the years to get better at that moment when I don't know someone's name. No matter how many times they have told me, I try and say, "remind me of your name so that I can remember it." Yes, even when it is embarrassing to have to do it more than once, it is still better than pretending that you know when you don't. It's a small but powerful lesson that can be transferred from what God does for us. We are told in a number of Bible verses that he knows us by name and counts even every hair on our head. In 2 Corinthians 1:22 Paul tells us that God not only knows us, but singles us out for Himself; "And he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment of everything he will give us." As we go to work today we can go to the office knowing that God not only knows each of us personally he also knows a true name that He has given us as He sends his Holy Spirit into each of us as His constant reminder. And as we go through this day, perhaps in how we treat each other and how we make personal contact with our co-workers, they might see a name tag that we wear that has the best name of all written on it. Nothing could be better than to have someone look at each of us and then have their eyes deflect down over our heart and then look back up at us knowing that they have seen Jesus. Today, not only think about the names of others but also think about the name tag that you wear to work.

Reference: 2 Corinthians 1:22 (New Living Testament)