Timeline for When is it appropriate to request business cards for a professional conference?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aug 7, 2012 at 13:00 | comment | added | bethlakshmi | Love the answer (especially the "... you've got bigger problems"! :) ), one possible addition - the person to ask is your boss, not the admin. And give a double check on format. Especially for junior employees, there may well be a very formal format for them so that they look consistent and no one gets terrifyingly creative. | |
Aug 6, 2012 at 19:37 | comment | added | David Navarre | I only used about 3 or 4 each time, so they had chosen wisely. | |
Aug 6, 2012 at 19:35 | comment | added | Keith Thompson | @DavidNavarre: Ok, that makes sense. Still, the additional cost of printing 100 cards rather than 12 should have been trivial -- and less than the cost of dealing with your followup request when you've used up the original 12. | |
Aug 6, 2012 at 19:24 | comment | added | David Navarre | Keith, I think both companies did the business card printing in-house, which kept the cost down. With it all computerized, it only takes seconds to switch info on the cards anyway. | |
Aug 6, 2012 at 19:03 | comment | added | Keith Thompson | @DavidNavarre: I'm surprised they only gave you a dozen. I'd expect 12 cards to cost substantially more than 5% of the cost of 240 cards. I recently got 250 cards from Vistaprint for free (the "cost" was a small Vistaprint advertisement on the back of each card). | |
Aug 6, 2012 at 15:59 | comment | added | David Navarre | Since it's possible for the business to provide minimal numbers of cards (twice I was given only about a dozen cards) and the cost of a standard box of 250 can be as little as $12, I can't imagine a company completely denying an employee cards. I created business cards for myself on Vistaprint (I'm a historian when I'm not developing software) with a logo and photo on the back for that minimal charge. In my current position, they gave me 100 instead of 250 and I think that will be just fine. | |
Aug 5, 2012 at 15:00 | comment | added | Angelo | There is no need for the OP to fret about asking for business cards. You never know when a card might be useful to have even if there is no immediate need at the moment. From the employer perspective, however, there are consequences for denying a request for business cards. It might be seen as an insult or a de-valuation. | |
Aug 5, 2012 at 5:57 | comment | added | jmort253 | Good point. But I'd at least suggest that, when it comes time to actually use them for a real business venture, you still have some left ;) We should assume that anyone in a professional position already knows that though, but I've seen some crazy stuff and learned not to make assumptions. :) | |
Aug 5, 2012 at 5:50 | comment | added | Keith Thompson | @jmort253: From the employee's point of view, business cards are nice to have (at least I think so). If an employer is willing to provide them just for that reason, as a trivial fringe benefit that might even have some business value in the future, I don't see a problem. On the other hand, if the employer has a stated policy that business cards are provided only for specific business-related reasons, I probably wouldn't bother to ask. And the question was whether the employee should ask, not whether the employer should say yes. | |
Aug 5, 2012 at 4:49 | comment | added | jmort253 | There is no business value using business cards as bookmarks or just to give to friends and family. If you happen to have some, great, hand some out, but these aren't valid reasons to submit to an employer. | |
Aug 5, 2012 at 3:59 | history | answered | Keith Thompson | CC BY-SA 3.0 |