Vocation

Today, I had my weekly meeting with one of the internship mentors, and he informed me that our name-tags had finally arrived! This was one of the highlights of my week because I have been waiting for one of these name-tags for a good month. But these aren’t your average sticker, “Hello, my name is:” name-tags. These are name-tags are silver (colored) and have super fancy magnetic backs so that you can keep them on your lapel and not pin a hole in your shirt. They are all etched in a beautiful font, perfectly centered and proportioned, and raise an otherwise average outfit to the next level.

But as nice as these name-tags make me look, there is a much more important reason I was so jazzed about their arrival. As shallow as a pretty name-tag might seem, at this university, those little silver name-tags mean something extremely important: leadership. I had already received one name-tag (from my job as a First Year Student Outreach Project/FYSOP Coordinator through the Community Service Center here at BU), and I used to joke around with people that I would judge my success at this university by how many silver name-tags I could accrue. Currently, the count is three name-tags (I also work in the Orientation Office as an academic year Program Adviser). Wearing one of those name-tags, I not only look official, but I am official. For FYSOP (and also my current Orientation position), the silver name-tag set me apart as someone that parents and/or students could come talk to with questions. Much responsibility is put in the hands of those with the coveted name-tags, and when I received my first silver name-tag for FYSOP, I truly wore it around the office as a badge of honor.

Now when I heard that the name-tags arrived, I think I did a little happy jump, and scuttled quickly into the Ministry office behind Soren ready to pounce on my new accessory.

Low and Behold, the Moment of Truth, And BAM!!! Robbie Lucchesi.

It should be noted that my name is spelled “Robby”.

From the evidence I have collected, this was not an effort at sabotaging my ministry efforts; it was apparently an honest mistake. Someone had written my name correctly, and oddly enough, someone else had “corrected” it from “Robby” to “Robbie”. This is all okay, though, because I wanted my proper name, “Robert”, to appear on the name-tag anyways, so this gave me an excuse to request another one without sounding petulant.

This brought up an interesting thinking point for me, though. I go by Robby to all of my friends and most of the people at Marsh Chapel as well, but I’ve recently tried seeing what would happen in a few classes if I go by Robert instead. Calling me Robert is the vocal equivalent of the silver name-tag. It gives legitimacy and weight to whatever I am saying or doing, and when I am in a ministry setting, I feel that Robert is more appropriate to the role I have. Robby is a pretty loud, outgoing, fun-loving guy, but sometimes worries that people don’t take him as seriously when he is accidentally a bit too rambunctious. However, Robert with his Silver Name-Tag sometimes loses the sense of joy and play that led him to the ministry in the first place. But as I patiently await my new name-tag, I know that as both Robby and Robert, I’ve been trusted with an immense amount of responsibility, and so my challenge moving forth is to find a balance between the two.

And including this sentence and the title, I used “name-tag” twenty times in this post.