Day 238 – Labels

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August 25, 2016 – Labels bug me.

The labels we apply to others, the labels people apply to themselves.

They all bug me a little bit.

Manager, Executive, Director, Senior, or any combination of those words…if they are just made up titles without any added responsibility of any magnitude, if you didn’t earn them through hard work and dedication, if they don’t come with a pay raise when they are awarded to you, then they are just modifiers designed to inflate and make people feel better about themselves, or to provide a title in lieu of pay.

In traditional workspaces, the word ‘executive’ in a job title means the position reports through to the CEO; in others it’s now used to describe call centre operators.  The same principle applies to the word ‘manager’. In some workplaces, it defines those who are responsible for a team of employees; in others it refers to those who manage stuff rather than staff, that’s not a manager!

Some companies create jargon filled titles to make boring jobs sound more exciting. In one company, a “Coin Facilitation Engineer” is the person who collects the money at a toll booth! The problem is that the job isn’t any better, and it doesn’t pay any better, and the title means the employer can get away with paying staff a pitiful wage as long as they provide a fancy label.

• Director of digital communications……he’s the Webmaster
• Business manager…..that’s the sales rep
• Beverage Dissemination Officer…that’s the bartender
• Colour Distribution Technician …..he’s the Painter & Decorator
• Customer Experience Enhancement Consultant…also known as the Shop Assistant
• Highway Environmental Hygienist….that’s the Road Sweeper
• Front Line Customer Support Facilitator….the Call Centre Worker
• Media Distribution Officer…that’s your Paper Boy

I suppose we’ve inflated everything else lately. Why not titles too?

School grades have been inflated; an A+ today is certainly not the quality it was 20 years ago. We’ve inflated achievements….exactly why do we give out awards for participation instead of sticking to the top achievers? Housing prices are inflated, so maybe we need to make ourselves feel better about living in poverty in the city so we make is “sound” like we are better than we really are.

So is there any value in titles?

In some cases yes, these days in many, not at all.

We label people so that we know they are like us, or that they aren’t, and then the world becomes reduced to “us” and “them”, and that really tends to bug me.

Some people want labels because they think the label brings prestige, and identifies them in the world of “us” and “them”, and that makes them feel like they fit in spot on some imaginary hierarchical scale and creates a little bit more self importance; it creates a personal identity, one that’s often not warranted.

The misleading thing about titles is that they really don’t say a lot about what someone actually does. Just having a label, a title, doesn’t mean that person is any good at what they do, it doesn’t mean they have the respect of others. They may portray a certain level of status, but it’s not until you dig a little deeper that you might discover that the label is completely hollow.

Maybe it’s not so surprising that we love labels. When we meet someone new, one of the first questions we tend to ask is “What do you do?” That’s a scary question because we all feel that we need a place, and that we need to know our place relative to that of others. Ergo the label. Our titles serve as identity badges. Everyone wants to feel special.

If someone asks you what you do, it’s much more interesting to hear what it is about your work that excites you and ignites you, not a hollow and meaningless title that just sounds pretty (or silly).

And beyond the business labels we apply and freely dispense, there are the other labels we use, some kind, some cruel. Some logical, some crazy.

We take personality tests to identify where we sit on a spectrum compared to others.

We are an introvert or an extravert. Or perhaps we are an introverted extravert. I love that one. “I’m not really introverted, but I’m not really extraverted, but I desperately need to label myself and still set myself apart, yes! An introverted extravert, that’ll do nicely!”

Our personality colours are red, or blue, or green, or yellow, and someone tells us that those colours define how we interact with others.

We are some random combination of the letters I, E, N, S, T, F, J, P and, even though it’s been more or less debunked by experts, those letters are used to judge our personalities and aptitude for jobs in some corporations because they are supposed to define us.

But they don’t.

Again, I think it all comes back to “us” and “them”. Being able to find a way to set ourselves apart and tell the world who we are in some strangely non-concrete terms.

I think it’s all silly.

Why are we so wrapped up in labels? I suppose it’s because we all want to be proud and fit in somewhere, somehow…but can’t we be proud of what we do, as long as we do it to the best of our ability?

Be proud of how well you do whatever it is that you do, not the label that’s attached to it. Other people care less than you think they do, well….worthwhile people care less than you think they do.

Titles don’t impress, people impress through their actions and abilities and ethics.

If I ask you what you do and you toss a fancy title at me, all I’ll end up thinking is that you have a bit of a complex and don’t really feel any confidence in yourself or what you do. Self inflation isn’t really all that pretty, and most people see right through it.

116 Photos in 2016 – 89. Proud