One of the things that has, over the last few decades, fucked the world with a jagged iron rod is the ridiculous names and titles that are today given to jobs that used to be perfectly respectable.
I waited in a stupidly long line at a drug store today only to be surlyized by a cashier who instead of being called a cashier was called a customer specialist.
I am surrounded by people at work who have superfluous words like senior, group, associate and director in their titles--words that are all but meaningless.
I suppose this obfuscation is cheaper than giving people more money. They hand out complicated names instead, hoping they will inspire pride.
Naturally, the most egregious name change is a department-wide one. From personnel to human resources. Most often human resource people aren't human and they have no resources.
Personally, I've had a raft of titles in my life. A few of them teetered on the edge of lofty.
But whenever I'm in a meeting and have to introduce myself I say I'm a copywriter.
I don't say I'm an Executive Creative Director.
Or I'm a creative.
I write copy.
2 comments:
Someone once handed me a card with the title Lord of Creation. It was not god - I'm pretty certain, his beard was too short - but a guy in ad agency in Sydney. I took it as tongue-in-cheek, but who knows?
Nothing like the classics. Whenever I introduce myself as as an 'art director,' I get that same look you get from an Irish Setter when it hears a dog whistle in the distance. Then I fall back on the old chestnut, 'commercial artist,' and the light bulb turns on.
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