But I have to admit to wiping a smile off my face when the service desk dude who rang up the bill skimmed through the summary of work done, referring to the person who handled the work order as, "A.--who was your advisor today..."
"Advisor"? Really?!
Now. I'm probably bordering on hypocritical here, simply because my second job in college (not counting work-study) was at an ever-so-slightly upscale women's clothing store. At minimum wage (plus the discount on the clothing I was supposed to buy from the store for the privilege of coming into work), I held the title of "Fashion Consultant." Anyone who knows me--and my jeans-and-baggy-cargigan dress sense--should quite rightly be howling with laughter at the irony.
I'll grant you, the "title inflation" phenomenon is not exclusive to recessionary economies. Witness, for instance, how any fool capable of picking the correct Dreamweaver menu options in the late 1990s qualified for a business card reading "Web Programmer." But--based on my perceptions from the double-whammy unemployment/inflation deathtrap of the early '80s onward--it seems to me that title inflation is a form of compensation for jobs that would normally be considered beneath the average sitcom character. You know, that alternate universe in which baristas can afford Manhattan apartments. That sort of thing.
But the problem is that inflation--in titles as in money--has diminishing returns. And the only saving grace of a bubble is that its popping restores--however temporarily--an equilibrium. At least until some skanky wanker decides to cut in line and starts gaming the system and other fools follow suit. Sigh.
Yet, to me, it all begs the question of why "Sanitary Engineers" are more societally correct than "Garbage Collectors." ('Course, as a Java partisan, I can totally get behind the value-add of garbage collection, but that's a whole 'nuther story...) Imagine how quickly life would become noxious if garbage collection stopped or the sewers were allowed to back up--how quickly we'd open our wallets to clear the stench from the apartment or house. Imagine the office (and parental) strife when day-care providers shut their doors...or home care providers stopped knocking on ours.
In the time capsule that is Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, she has (Miss) Kate Vaughn stand in for the British classism that is foil to (morally superior) American democratic sensibilities:
Miss Kate strolled away, adding to herself, with a shrug, "I didn't come here to chaperone a governess, though she is young and pretty. What odd people these Yankees are; I'm afraid Laurie will be quite spoilt among them."So the question is: Have we become the enemy--i.e. the Victorian elite whose servitors were expected to be velvet-footed, when not completely invisible?
"I forgot that English people turn up their noses at governesses, and don't treat them as we do," said Meg, looking after the retreating figure with an annoyed expression.
"Tutors, also, have a rather hard time of it there, as I know to my sorrow. There's no place like America for us workers, Miss Margaret;" And Mr. Brooke looked so contented and cheerful, that Meg was ashamed to lament her hard lot.
"I'm glad I live in it, then. I don't like my work, but I get a good deal of satisfaction out of it after all, so I won't complain; I only wish I liked teaching as you do."
Because, no matter how (cough!) "menial" (cough!) the job may be considered, the fact remains that we all--rich or poor, potentate or peon--have exactly 168 hours in a week---112 if you get your 8 hours of shut-eye. Even the increasingly Disney-esque fiction of the 40 hour workweek eats nearly a quarter of the grand total, and over a third of a human being's waking hours.
You can't claim to respect the sanctity of life on principle and auto-magically suspend that valuation in the face of The Suits' solemn invocations of "hard choices" in the name of "shareholder value." Nuh-uh. Not while I'm within earshot, anyway.
All of which makes me sorry that I didn't actually follow up yesterday's reference to "your advisor" with a dewy-eyed, "Oh, you mean the technician?" Because, frankly, "advisor," in my mind, implies self-interest, manipulation, puppeteering: Rasputin. Nostradamus. Karl Rove. Catherine dei Medici. Cardinal Richelieu...or even Wolsey, for pity's sake. Umm, thanks, but I just want someone to tell me which car-part is borked...and to put a not-borked one in. Trust me, I'll respect technical chops that a lot more than the eminence grise pretensions...most especially from someone almost young enough to be my child.
