Your Office Security Pass or ID

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I just got a Security Pass for the first time in years. It's almost magical the way I wave it near doors and they unlock. It's on a little elastic string that attaches to a fob-watch type arrangement. I've been getting cheap thrills pulling it out and watching it snap back.

There's even a little photo of me on it. Though is there some kind of magical filter they put on the cameras to make everyone look gormless?

I wonder how far I can go with it. I can get in and out of my department, and in and out the back (despatch) door. Do you think I can go wandering about other floors with it, or will it just not let me in? Does this information get tracked anywhere? The security guards seem too busy watching TV to bother checking.

And do you think I can get into other buildings or workplaces that use the same system?

I'm fascinated by this system. Tell me about yours.

n.b. I am not a spy or an infiltrator. Just curious.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Thursday, 10 March 2005 10:47 (twenty years ago)

Though is there some kind of magical filter they put on the cameras to make everyone look gormless?

Oh man, I just renewed my drivers licence yesterday and I swear they do something to those cameras to make everyone look deformed and ugly.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Thursday, 10 March 2005 10:53 (twenty years ago)

I have a Gormless Filter on my polaroid, definitely. It's supposedly this "close up" lense, but it just makes people look deficient.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Thursday, 10 March 2005 10:59 (twenty years ago)

i have almost black level clearance on mine, what with working in IT and all.

your door accesses will almost certainly be logged somwhere.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:07 (twenty years ago)

I have a swipecard that gets me into places in this here building. It has a photo of me on it that's four years old and thus looks nothing like me (short hair, no beard, horrible shirt & tie) with a printing error makes me look like I have perfectly straight parting/neurosurgery scar in my hair. It also has a 'smart' chip that stores ca$hmoney and allows me buy manky thawed out sandwiches and manky coffee subtitutes from vending machines. We are sternly warned by security not to tailgate people through badge-locked doors without swiping - this may qualify as the most ignored warning in the universe.

― lock robster (robster), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

A bunch of tubes operate our security system.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

Swipecard, the photo on which as usual makes me look like the star turn on Police Five.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

as they took my photo I tilted my slightly to one side. my photo maybe the coolest picture of me in existence.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:21 (twenty years ago)

I made the mistake of smiling for mine, because I always look so scowly in work photos. But unfortunately this made me look like a rabbit. :-(

I wish they put money on ours. I'd spent it in the canteen. That would be a nice benefit to suggest.

I helped no less than 3 people in the back door yesterday. No one ever said that I couldn't. Was that tailgating?

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

Oh no, I just had a frightening thought... what if they hooked up our security pass to the coffee machine, so they could tell how much coffee we've drunk... CUT OFF THE CAFFEINE SUPPLY TO THE DATA ANALYSIS TEAM BEFORE THEY EXPLODE!!!

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)

"head" dammit

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:29 (twenty years ago)

My I.D card photo looks like I have a goitre. It's the same photo they use on my works intranet. I also have glassy eyes and a vulture like hunch to my neck.

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:34 (twenty years ago)

In my photo that is.

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Thursday, 10 March 2005 11:35 (twenty years ago)

Hahahahahaha I can't actually discuss this topic!! I would be in violation of the US Code!

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

The closest that I can come to any of this is that I know where in the engineer's office the key to the box of spare keys is.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 10 March 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

My key card doesn't have a photo, but I can use it to get into TEH MALL.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

*cannot agree more with winnie the pooh - people (&their workplaces & theirs security passes (or lack thereof) are very, very different*
:)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 10 March 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

I look pretty grim on mine. A friend saw mine and asked whether I was working at the Joseph Menegele Brazilian Pediatric Hospital.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 10 March 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

the panopticon in action

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Kate I've been signing in at the building's front desk for a month now, and the woman down there has started teasing me about why I don't have an I.D. yet. The real answer is that I don't really care, and I'm leaving in a week anyway, but I have a good time rolling my eyes with her and railing against the complacent bureaucracy that normal people like us must put up with.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 17:58 (twenty years ago)

I had one of those when I worked at the 4c4d3my 0f 4rt. They changed them each year, but I never had time to wait an hour in line to get mine changed so I carried on using it. One day, the security guard (who saw me EVERY day!) barred me from the building because it was out of date. I explained that I was late and he just tried to pull the card away from me, so I ripped it up and threw it into the street. I kind of have a short temper.

― Senior Executive/CEO (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:03 (twenty years ago)

Hahaha not too long before I quit my old job we were issued security passes to enter the main office. Atrocious, atrocious, everyone's photo was so bad. Mine was fantastic though, not in any kind of aesthetically pleasing way by any means, but because while I was sitting to take the picture MY MOST HATED COWORKER, D4VID G0B3N, walked in talking this ridiculous baby talk to the two coworkers who sucked his ass CONSTANTLY, and the look on my face when they snapped it is of such pure, unrelenting, utter disgust that it ended up being scanned in by another coworker and made into a fake employment monster.com type ad for Mill3nnium. I literally look like I am about to vomit and murder someone, simultaneously, in the photo.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:52 (twenty years ago)

the best is when they ask you to turn them in.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

The best part about it was that my nickname, the Red Terror, was revived because of it, after being unfortunately retired when I dyed my hair black.

What was funny was that they made such a big production and expense out of these fancy IDs but I never remember using it but once--the day I had to go return it to HR, at which point, ironically, it had been turned off! The one chance to actually use the thing which I had for like 3 months and never had to use cos the security guard just didn't give a fuck (there was no DOOR to open or a GATE to go through, it was an open entry way anyone could walk through that just happened to have a card swipe, inexplicably, on one of the walls), and it didn't work!

XPOST

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:00 (twenty years ago)

Actually maybe that story belongs on Tracer's panopticon thread--I mean people swiping IDs to get through a nonexistant gate/door next to a security guard who knew all of them by name--WTF??

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:01 (twenty years ago)

it's also nice when they go "pls collect all your belongings from your desk, don't log in to your computer, and follow the security guard to the exit."

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:10 (twenty years ago)

My method of getting to my desk = chatting w/woman downstairs for awhile, getting my little temporary cardboard pass which is actually very handsome - you know, as I type this, I think the real reason I haven't got a real ID yet is that I'm just in love with the design of the temp passes! They're square, and made of a satisfyingly soft red card stock, with the company logo on the red side and nice Caslon lettering on the other, white, side, reading "Visitor," above which balances a thin dotted line and today's cruelly stamped date, in smudgy, off-set block letters. It's a thing of beauty. I've seen the IDs, they're horrible, just slabs of flat plastic with stretched digital photos laserjetted onto them. Awful.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

I've got one for the door, another for the elevator and another for getting the appropriate security cards when I go elsewhere. I think the true undisclosed goal of my job is to collect security cards.

I hate my job today. Time for freeciv.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

Btw, I have to use my keycard like 10,000,000,000 times per day since our office is split by a hallway with security doors on each side. Not to mention the excitement of possibly clocking an elderly mall walker every time I open a door.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

It pisses me off that I have to wear the thing to get into the building and into the office, yet they can't make the damn bathroom doors card accessable. Why should I have to use a key (that I have to go pick up from the secretary every time I want to take a piss) when they made me get this stupid card?

― Dan M. (OutDatWay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

Because when the robots take over the world we need to at least be able to get into the bathrooms.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

We don't bother with ID cards at work, because everyone who works in each office knows what everyone else in that office looks like, and hardly anyone actually has keys for anywhere.

(I think, for head office, I'm probably "most junior keyholder on the staff")

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

i wanna see ally's photo!

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:09 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I was kinda hoping that people would scan in their most nightmare ID photos and post them...

The only time I've had to "hand in" a security pass was when I was working for the NY State DCJS building their fingerprint database (ha, probably why I still get off on when they use it in CSI:NYC - I have to shout "I built that database!!!") and we had to get mega-clearance in order to work that job. Not just passes, but to get above the fifth floor to where the fingerprints were stored, every elevator stopped and had to be released by a security guard checking that everyone in it had a badge.

(Funny how they still had more criminals working there than we ever caught... at least two employees arrest records came up while we were scanning fingerprints.)

Anyway, they wouldn't give me my last check until I turned in my badge. So I went to the office and literally grabbed my check out of the supervisor's hands. He was a jerk anyway, thought he was god coz he played guitar in some lameass local indie band, ugh. Then I gave back the pass. I wanted to keep it cause it got me into bars.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 09:32 (twenty years ago)

my ID badge photo has way too much yellow in it. I was laughing at the guy who was taking the picture, so it looks like my eyes are thin little slits.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

listen i am not even scanning my "dream" photos onto ilx, never mind my "nightmare" ones!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

A friend of mine was off work for three days with concussion after her keycard failed to work and she walked into the door that should have opened and knocked herself out. It was at a humungous law firm too - I bet they treated her with kid gloves after that.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:34 (twenty years ago)

here's my id card from when i was temping at skadden arps. i was supposed to get an id at my last job but i think they forgot.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

whoops:

http://southsidecallbox.com/ilx/sasmf_id.jpg

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

It's almost magical the way I wave it near doors and they unlock.

I wish they put money on ours. I'd spent it in the canteen. That would be a nice benefit to suggest.

kate i thought you hated oyster cards!!!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

I wouldn't mind if it was THEIR money that they put on the cards!

Obviously I wouldn't go putting any of my *own* money on them.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:23 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

I HAS A NEW SECURITY PASS!!!!

I look super insane bonkers on it.

However, it will get me ANYWHERE in either building (including the IT department which isn't really part of my remit) - plus I'm sure it will be great for queue-jumping come the London Architectural Open Weekend. Mwah hah hah.

LET ME THROUGH I'M AN ARCHITECT*!!!!!

*Not really, just a data architect.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 21 August 2008 14:18 (seventeen years ago)

I love my ID because the picture of me is so hot (IMHO,) sadly I never look this good in real life. Fun thing is I had no idea I'd be having a picture taken that day!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1258/854406556_903e8178a6_m.jpg

Can't show the ID though as it's Government issued and I don't want to get stripped of it or anything crazy! Never safe than sorry, I guess..

― Finefinemusic, Thursday, 21 August 2008 15:50 (seventeen years ago)

my government id was also one of the few good pictures of me ever taken. it helped that it was taken 2 days after i got back from a week in hawaii and was tan and happy and glad to find out i got a promotion while i was away.

― chicago kevin, Thursday, 21 August 2008 15:54 (seventeen years ago)

not bad kevin! I wish I could go to Hawaii and return to a promotion, damn.

― Finefinemusic, Thursday, 21 August 2008 15:55 (seventeen years ago)

"promotion" = they wanted to fire my boss because he was a pain in the ass but they couldn't because being a pain in the ass isn't grounds for termination with the federal government so they promoted him instead. when he got bumped up he took me with him. good deal.

― chicago kevin, Thursday, 21 August 2008 15:58 (seventeen years ago)

Have nothing for my actual job but have one for the BBC because we have a contract up there. I have not yet found a door it doesn't unlock. Not a great photo though, grainy over stretched ill lit webcam shot.

― Ed, Thursday, 21 August 2008 15:59 (seventeen years ago)

hahaha hey, whatever we can get!

― Finefinemusic, Thursday, 21 August 2008 16:01 (seventeen years ago)

finefinepic

― jergins, Thursday, 21 August 2008 19:50 (seventeen years ago)

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