I recently had the need to hand out some business cards. However I have not received any from my company. You apparently have to order them. I thought this would not be a problem. I went to the online order form. After filling out most of the required information, I chose a custom title of “Rock Star Programmer”.A message was generated that stated my order was cancelled. The reason was that you can only use your official company title on business cards. Otherwise you have to submit a business case to the anonymous Program Administrator. At first I was taken aback. Why do I have to go through the motions of justifying a minimal purchase such as business cards?
I decided to go online myself and pay for my own business cards. There are some sites which will print them for you for free. You just have to pay the postage which amounts to 6 bucks. I did so, and added some extra customization, bringing the total to ten dollars. This is a crock. I made sure the business cards I paid for did not have my company name on them. Hey. If I am paying for the darn things, they are going to only have my name.
In the end, I went back and composed a business case for the company to approve a custom title on my business cards. I figured I would give the company one last chance. Besides, I determined I would expense the company anyway for the ten bucks for my own cards if they would not approve my business case. The anonymous Program Administrator eventually gave me an approval for the custom title of Rock Star Programmer.
That was a good decision. I would hate for my opening line when handing out my cool new business cards to be, “I work for a big company. They would not let me choose my own title. So I had to buy my own cards.” The company has already made the decision to hire me. They should not scrutinize me for a $10 business card order. I am going to make the best decision for the business. If not, you should not have hired me in the first place. We are not in kindergarten any more.
