This is about my employee ID. My badge, as they call it.
It’s made of hard plastic, bearing the company logo, my photo, my name, and a unique number, and encoded with a magnetic code. Used to open the company’s door. Or doors.
For a while, I wore it clipped to my belt, at the end of an elastic cord.
Then the cord snapped, and now I wear it hanging from a lanyard around my neck. Every morning—and even more so today, because it’s Monday—whenever I slip that lanyard over my head, it feels like a halter.
A halter by which I drag myself, against my will, toward my daily drudgery.