For a tiny piece of thin card, a business card holds a lot of power. Some are bright and colourful, some minimalistic, some just boring and badly made (vistaprint, we’re looking at you; you’re enticing amateurs). However, regardless of how glamorous or ghastly your business card is, it is a sign that you have made it to the level of adulthood where you hold some importance. Maybe you’re a business owner, a budding actor or musician, maybe you’re just high enough up in your department that someone, somewhere, has decided that you are worth it; that you are worth a few hundred pieces of glossy card tied together with a rubber band.
Many a time, I have found myself of these business card websites, where there are free samples or special deals, willing myself to make business cards. Although, my main problem, what stumps me once I’m there with templates in front of me… I am unemployed. I volunteer, and babysit, and if I do get a job then it is bound to be menial and uninteresting. I’m a student with no particularly special capabilities. I play a few instruments, I use big words unnecessarily, and I go to the gym. None of those give me enough of a title to put on a business card. Perhaps that’s my subconscious goal in life; become important enough to need business cards, because so many people will want to contact me that I won’t be able to keep up.
I have no qualms really, about having no reason for business cards. I’m a student who still has to work for a few more years to have notable achievements, but I still want them. Small and glossy pieces of recycled card with my name and my number, a legitimate-sounding email address and a job title! Maybe, if I’m really lucky, I’ll even have a logo to go on my cards, rather than some tacky template that I’ve already seen at least four times myself.
To those of you who have business cards, I congratulate you. Even if they say musician, even if they say actor, even if they say contracted refuse collector; I am proud of you. Appreciate those pieces of card that fit so nicely in the palm of your customers’ and business partners’ hands.
To those of you with business cards, I salute you.