Rory Cullen, Kaizen Software Developer

Have you ever heard of a “phantom” limb?  This experience sometimes happens to amputees, they sometimes feel like the limb they have lost is still present.  It must be a bizarre feeling.  Anything that occupies a spot in your life for 10 years is certainly going to feel like a major loss.  Although not nearly so traumatizing, I have a major phantom limb of my own, born from my last job.

I had lunch yesterday with a former co-worker in my old “work” neighborhood.  While observing several former co-workers enter the restaurant, I was reminded of my phantom limb, my employee ID.  There are memories associated with that ID.  This ID hung off my left pocket for years, and before that, my right pocket.  I remember why I moved it from my right pocket.  I had been playing goalie in indoor soccer, and had sprained my right thumb.  My simian arms hung low enough that I struck my thumb joint on the ID card when I walked around, so I moved it to the left side to relieve the irritation.

Your ID becomes a part of you, good and bad.  You check for it when you leave the house everyday.  Sometimes, you have that brief panic that it’s missing, even though it’s Saturday and you’re on the way to the beach.  Muscle-memory playing tricks, or maybe real memory.

At my former employer, people could use it to judge how long you have been with the company.  Maybe you have gained weight, lost hair, had a nose job.  Maybe your hairstyle was courtesy of Aquanet, or George Clooney (the Caesar anyone?), or Billy Ray Cyrus?  Maybe it hasn’t changed since then?

My picture was a freeze frame of my first day.  I was wearing a purple button-down shirt that my brother gave me.  This was my favorite shirt, which I wore like clockwork until my elbow broke through the fabric in the sleeve one day, also at work.  In my picture, I had good hair, and a decent tan.  I had just returned from a two-week vacation in Japan and Seattle, visiting another brother and some good friends.  I had hiked Mt Washington over the previous weekend.  It’s funny, my first thought while writing this was “Who was that guy?” but I haven’t changed that much at all.  I have hiked Washington seven or eight times since, have been to a few more exotic places, and my hair…well, let’s not revisit that again.  Anyway, sometime over the past few months, I stopped checking for my badge.  I don’t remember when.

This afternoon, I noticed my parking sticker on my car, also from my previous employer.  This was not just a parking sticker, but also a way I recognized cars on my commute, and in other lots around the region.  Some days it seemed like every other car was from my employer.  It was a symbol to me, a way to recognize people who I shared a common bond with.  I guess there will be a finality of removing the sticker, but it doesn’t hold the allure of my ID.  I forget the sticker, tucked there in the rear passenger window, ironically in my blind spot.  Seeing it today was a reminder of the past, but held little emotional resonance.

I think I’ll scrape that sticker off over the weekend.  And you know, I’m a little color-blind, so my favorite shirt may have been blue after all.  If only I had a picture to remind me…