When did the plumber

and the weatherman 

get their operations? 

     Am I living on another planet, or what?  When did the plumber become a mechanical contractor?  When did the weatherman become a meteorologist?  (Don’t get me wrong.  Meteors are interesting phenomena, but I only care about temperatures, rain and snow.  For meteors, I have the Science Channel.) 

     Oh, and please, when did an “operation” become softened to a procedure?  (Probably when numerous hospitals became medical centers, chiropractors became sports physicians, and cardiothoracic surgeons became heart specialists).  Ah, yes, and of course 99% of procedures are also routine procedures! 

     Speech therapists, who specialize in helping people speak and swallow better, no longer want to be called speech therapists; now they’re speech pathologists.  (Don’t pathologists specialize in dead people?)  

     Many salesmen and saleswomen who became “salespeople” during the sexual revolution are now (more PC) sales associates.  Like the trouble with mailmen and female mailmen finally settling into a state of  androgenous mush to become universally known as postal workers.  Oh, and have you noticed how few companies have employees anymore?  How about Members as in “going to work at the clubhouse.” 

     When I was in school, we had a janitor to clean the building.  Then the janitor became a custodian which no doubt upset many legal custodians (and, correspondingly, numerous lawyers and attorneys and attorneys at law — all of whom, in my judgement, deserve to experience upsets!).  Ah, but take heart, now the old guy is called a maintenance facilitator, leaving little doubt as to custodianship! 

     I hope we don’t all begin confusing the MVB with the DVM and start getting our cars in for flea and tick treatments, and tail light inspections for our dogs!  By the way, in this age of specialization, a canine ophthalmologist?  This is for those near-sighted pitbulls? 

     So what does all this mean? 

     For small businesses (especially startups) and big business HR departments and others who make these decisions: Don’t parade yourself around on stationery and business cards and websites as “CEO” when you’re a one or two-person firm, or as a large company “Director” of something that no one else is involved with (So how can you be directing?). 

     That kind of inflated title stuff worked in olden times, before every bank in town had 14,000 vice presidents, but not today. 

     “Founder,” by the way, is equally unimportant unless you started Dreamworks or Microsoft or Google.  If it’s that important to your ego, put it on a sticky note on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself of your genius talents.

     Bottom line:  Call yourself what you are!  Say what you do!  Stay away from fancy and misleading language.  Make-believe titles, overblown and over-inflated job descriptions do disservice to your organization, regardless of whether you’re a Mom & Pop operation or a Fortune 500 mega-corporation.  

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FOR ONE-MAN-BANDS AND MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS AS WELL, ONGOING SALES SUCCESS IN TODAY’S BUSINESS WORLD IS ALL ABOUT BUILDING AND CULTIVATING “HIGH TRUST” LEVELS. 

THIS IS ACCOMPLISHED BY CONSISTENTLY  DEMONSTRATING STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS, A COMMITMENT TO AUTHENTICITY AND SOCIAL CONCIOUSNESS LEADERSHIP . . . AND –REGARDLESS OF INDUSTRY– TO BEING FULLTIME DEDICATED TO THE PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL WELL-BEING.

 ATTITUDE IS THE CORNERSTONE.

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