Hi, Me Tarzan. What’s Your Name?


business nametag conference cartoon

I always hated those business events where you had to wear a name tag.

For one thing, it always seemed rude to me to constantly be scanning peoples’ chests to see if you recognized their name. If you do, then you’re okay and you can say something like, “Oh hi, Tom! It’s so nice to meet you!”

But if you don’t, then you’ve just been staring at their chest too long and now to have to pretend you were just deep in thought or maybe have x-ray vision.

Also, I have bad vision. So I have to get closer than normal to read what’s on there. Once you have to lean in, you’re committed, whether you want to talk to that person or not.

And then there are the people that like to get cutesy with their name tags. Ugh…

So as you can see, I have a lot of issues with name tags. None of which really explain this cartoon – but it felt good to talk about them.

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Mark Anderson Mark Anderson's cartoons appear in publications including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. His business cartoons are available for licensing at his website, Andertoons.com.

2 Reactions
  1. Same here! I have to look pretty close to see what’s on the name tag!

    What I now do nowadays is look at the person and if they look interesting to me, I go with my gut, approach and hope for the best 🙂

  2. Finding this has brought joy to my day – My name is Really Tarzan Sharif – and I attend 3-4 networking events in Austin, Texas. So with my name on name-tags no one ever forgets me. I honestly thought I must have met you at an event? Have we met?