"Let's go get you a lanyard."

TV Samira Ahmed writes for The New Statesman on the talismanic nature of lanyards:

"Two 1990s television shows gave us our figureheads: Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files, flashing her FBI ID at every opportunity, and later Allison Janney’s C J Cregg in The West Wing, who embodied the idea of the female who had broken through, thoroughly qualified to run the operation. The lanyard was their symbol of arrival and as much of a challenge to the old order as their brightly coloured pantsuits were."

In the more customer service orientated employment I have, due to wearing my own clothes the lanyard becomes the uniform. Putting it on means I'm working, off I'm on my break or out of the door home.