Business Cards

When I was in high school I made my own business card. It read:

Steve Raye

Dr. of Love

King of Spray Paint

Professional at Everything

That’s pretty bad. I mean first of all I was not anything close to the Dr. of Love for a thousand reasons I won’t even begin to explain… Secondly, while I had spray painted a couple silly things here and there, I was far from the king of spray painting. And finally, I was a professional at nothing. Literally nothing. But it shows my hubris and cocky nature. I still have some of that in me and I see it in my son now too. I’m not fond of my cocky side, my vanity and self promotion. I want to be more humble and skeptical of my talents. My son sees himself as invincible, award winning, and amazing. That’s good. I think kids should grow up believing in themselves and their abilities. I think it can even be healthy to have an unrealistic swagger and confidence, but there has to be a balance too…. A realization that we are all human and vulnerable, ignorant and down right silly.

But that’s not what I came here to write. I came here just to talk about my gallon zip lock bag full of business cards. I can’t say when I started but my guess would be 5 years ago. At some point I started unloading the business cards I had been given onto my desk at the end of the day. They would pile up on the desk over weeks and eventually I started throwing them in a basket. The basket started to fill and my wife wanted to use the basket for better things than business cards so I moved them to a big clear bag. For years now they go into the bag, after enough of them pile on my desk.

I‘ve never made any new business cards since those original 16 year old cards. I have a real business now and have been asked a hundred times if I have a card, but I just don’t feel like a business card sort of guy. My restaurant has a website and it’s easy to find online. There’s a contact link with my email address if you really need to get hold of me. Giving out my name and cell just seems like a waste of paper.

But business cards are still a fairly common thing. Customers leave them for me with hand scrawled notes on the back. People I meet give me 5 or 10 so I can hand them out to other people. Seems that every week I get handed 3–5 bunsiness cards with a full range of names, addresses, and occupations revealed. I put them on the desk, and later into the bag.

I think I did go looking through the bag once to find someone’s number. I think. But I can’t remember if I found it. I think of it as a sculpture now. An ever growing bulge of paper: identities, logos, dreams, careers, and contacts… filling up and expanding a clear plastic bag. Maybe one day I’ll have to start bag 2.

Business cards. I collect them it seems.