Do euphemisms really make people feel any better about themselves? Example: I used to be “color blind”, now I “suffer from a color perception deficiency”. ???. Remeber when the guy who picked up your garbage was called the garbageman? Now he (or she) is a “sanitation engineer”. Yeah, right. Employees in department stores are “associates” or “partners”. I know a LOT of these types of jobs suck, I’ve had a few, but why give them fancy names? This whole PC thing has gotten WAY out of hand.
Some of these new job titles are supposed to go along with changes in management philosophy. I think “sales accociates” are supposed to have power to manage their own time, and not supposed to get a fixed salary, but rather, to be on commission. That way, they are partners of the business, not just the peons at the sales end of the totem pole. The downside is that if they make few sales, they have trouble paying the bills. Whether or not they are really treated like partners, I don’t know.
Certainly people don’t treat garbage men like engineers … people will actually talk to garbage men. Joke! Some of my best friends are engineers.
I do think “title creep” is a bad thing, mainly because it causes confusion. If a garbage man is a “sanitation engineer”, then what do you call the person who slaves over the blueprints of the sewage system with a protractor and those neat pencils? A “sewage man”?
It isn’t just a recent phenomenon, though. In 1971 I was pumping gas at a station in Louisville. Was I a ‘pump jockey’? Nawwww, I was a driveway salesman.
When spending a weekend on the road with a band (Sepulture, for those keeping score at home), I spent one night getting drunk with Nino, the guy who did the band’s live sound.
He complained, as only a drunken roadie could, that he hated being called “sound dude.” I suggested “Audio Technician.”
He loved it and last I heard still uses the appellation.
At one time, “Human Resources” was called “Personnel.”
In a lot of places now, “Highway Patrol” is given the benevolent moniker of “Public Safety.” Guess that sounds a little more palatable that “Predatory Revenue Enhancers.”
Occam: The only folk I ever encountered who used the term, “mixologist” to describe themselves, were inevitably the ones who went to that damned bartending “college”.
Buncha pains in the ass who always short-poured, grrr.
The jobs are (supposed to be) different… I may do secretarial duties for the consultants I’m supposed to assist, or do research, draft portions of their reports, etc. The whole idea is to maximize the use of their time and expertise by having someone who understands what they’re doing handling the things he/she can, freeing the lead guy on the project up to do the things only he/she can do.
Now, granted, there are people who chew gum, file nails and letters, and generally don’t do significant work that have gotten the title through creeping euphemism. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t real generalists like me out there trying to justify it.
Same deal as with physical therapists. There are people who are devoted specialists in rehabilitation with postgraduate training who spend their lives trying to help people who need it get their bodies functioning again after accidents. And there are clowns who have taken one course in massage that call themselves by the same term.
Probably a dozen other examples where the guy/girl who is really trying to do a good job is ambushed by the fakers claiming the same name.
The MADD Victim’s Impact Panel met in our conference room last night. For those of you who aren’t familiar, people who get DWIs pay to go to these lectures. Anyway, most people who come in looking for the meeting ask for it by the name I gave above. A few, however, ask where the “night class” is. They think I won’t know what they’re really here for.
I recall an episode of one of Lucille Ball’s shows where she and her family drive to the USAF Academy and she tries to get her son an appointment there.
She runs into the head of the Academy, whose title is “superintendent”. She dismissed him, thinking of “superintendent”'s other connotation of “janitor”.
