Pimp My Job Title
by Wentworth Sutton, assistant vice-principal, Mitchell Hepburn Collegiate Institute, Don Mills, and president emeritus, Semiologico-Hermeneutic Institute of Toronto
Over the past thirty years jobs have come to acquire ever more glorious titles. Coffee shops no longer have counter help, for example. Instead you get your coffee from an “associate,” much as, to the police, crimes are not committed by gang members but by known criminal associates. People who were formerly designated as assistants (research assistants, for example) have become officers or consultants, but just as coffee-shop associates continue to help at the counter, officers and consultants continue to assist. Technically, anyone who isn’t a manager is an assistant, one would think.
The initial incentive to inflate job titles was the tight money of the 1970s. Employers hoped that the help – sorry, employees – sorry, the staff – would demand less of that scarce cash if they got to use a more grandiose job title. Then in the 1980s, as company hierarchies got flattened, employers placated people who had lost actual status by giving them even more grandiose titles which made it look as if they had gained status.
But that’s all over, and job title inflation continues. It has now reached the highest ranks – sorry, echelons – of companies – sorry, corporations. Presidents are now being styled executive chairmen, with presidents (formerly vice-presidents) reporting to them. Inflation of course triggers job title inflation all the way down the ladder; presidents have to have vice-presidents reporting to them after all. So in the companies that own coffee shops the counters are probably now staffed by catering co-ordinators.
As we know, or rather as we know if we’ve been listening to me, when we see behaviour persisting when there is no tangible reward for it, we know that we are witnessing the effects of deep psychological need. People’s alienation from a society over which they have no real power is so deep that they have to create for themselves a world in which they are treated, in one insignificant way at least, as if they were powerful and respected people.
Well, good on them. It beats having them making up for their powerlessness by going home and beating the kids, which is one of the traditional ways of dealing with this problem.
The real problem is that not all segments of society have been able to benefit from this simple psychological ploy. There are echelons even higher than that of the executive chairman. Consider the prime minister. While his title is slightly better than first minister, it still implies that he is only first among equals in cabinet. It’s no wonder prime ministers tend to be so psychologically needy these days.
Just think how much better-rounded a personality Stephen Harper would have if he got to be introduced as executive assistant to Mr. Cheney. And dear Jack Layton – he’d appear much less uncomfortable and bristly if his business card bore the resounding title of Chief Architect of the Death of Socialism, a proud title handed down from a long line beginning with Stephen Lewis. As for Stéphane Dion, a title of Not Michael Ignatieff would not only satisfy the intellectual little devil but reassure the Canadian people.
Title inflation would then trickle downward. Premier is a pretty sad excuse for a title, for example. Premier what? is what one immediately thinks of asking. But with the prime minister given a new glorious title, the premiers could become prime ministers in English. In French they already are prime ministers, but we know what title would really bolster the self-esteem of the premier ministre of Quebec. So in French the premiers would become chefs d’état – sorry, d’État, and they’d be heads of State in English.
Wouldn’t the real head of state be a bit miffed?, you ask. She’s already got the title Her Majesty, so I can’t see her being too jealous if her underlings try to borrow a bit of her glamour.
And remember, dear reader, eventually this title inflation is going to trickle down toYOU. So if today you’re, say, a lint-picker, soon you will be a lint-picking consultant. Then you will become a senior lint-picking consultant. In the next step upward you become Executive in Charge of Fibrous Matter Extraction, and after that Senior Executive in Charge of Fibrous Matter Extraction.
Then they replace you with a machine.
Pimp My Job Title © John FitzGerald, 2007
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