#Stately: Employee Scorned for Inoperative Security Badge

by Natalie Herzog
January 31, 2007

Hester Prynne, an employee with the State Administration of Human Services and Health Related Stuff, was publicly shamed Thursday on the agency scaffold and presented a scarlet letter for acts involving a non-operating security badge and her demand for one that does.

The incident is the final act in a week-long ordeal that had been met with anxiety, disappointment, false accusations, and a $3 piece of plastic. According to Prynne, her suffering began last Friday when her security badge, her third, was somehow demagnetized at her desk.

"I came back from lunch, which for me was sitting outside on the outdoor picnic tables that I pay $10 a month to reserve," Prynne said. "I swiped my badge across the black box and nothing: no click, no beep, nothing." Following the initial and seemingly innocent accident, Prynne turned her card over to Glinda Harrison, the secretary on duty who in turn forwarded the request for a new badge into the Information Resources program.

Almost a full week passed before Prynne was contacted by the Reverend Danny Freeman and her week turned sour.

Prynne's supervisor, Bert Turner, was approached Thursday by the Reverend "Big Dan" Freeman and toadie Kevin Jackson with Prynne's request for a third badge. "Reverend Freeman was all, you know, 'Thou wretched prune hath ask-ed thee for whic thou canst provide,' or some sort of whack-ass crap. I asked why he was wasting his time telling me, and that seemed to get him on his way. But the point that he wasn't happy about this was quite obvious."

Freeman says he's just doing his job. "Harketh, thou which fail to guide thy life through His great Business Operations Manual will suffer at the hands of Thy creator. Thine hath demanded that the thou too shall suffer incomprehensible fury. Thy goode manual sayeth that the way is the one, and I am the one, at least this week at any rate. When the regular person comes back next week, I'll be back to entering code and desperately talking with any woman who looks at me."

In all this disorder, Prynne says she has never once talked or even seen Freeman. "It was really an insult to finally get my badge and then have Glinda tell me he had passed on a message to her, for me." The message was that if Prynne should ever lose the new badge, or have it break again, that she would be denied a replacement badge and would be required to travel the extra distance to the guarded security entrance in the next building.

"To me, that's highly ludicrous," Prynne said. "I know numerous people who are on their fifth or sixth badge. Why is me getting a third one in my sixth year here causing schisms in procedures suddenly?"

Freeman quickly denied favoritism. "Yeah, ya see, what it is, is that whatcha need to do is use the badge for what it is for. And, uh... Prynne dideth not use the card to thine own guidelines, or something. She’s unable to forgive her scared old badge...yeah. But, uh - I'm in charge until Sandie gets back week after next so I'm on some giddy authority trip. Yeah, that's it."

Following her three-hour display on the public scaffold, Prynne reportedly will tell Information Resources exactly where they can relocate her broken badge. She had no comment regarding Reverend Freeman.