Published in Beat Magazine, June 27, 2007

Just when I think job titles can’t get any more out of hand, I get a phone call from a friend of mine…

It’s been in the corporate world for years. Any person can have a business card with a job title of three or more words, from the Chief Executive Officer through to the Infrastructure Hygiene Facilitator. But now it’s happening more in areas dealing with the general public (dealing with the general public has its own buzzterm, by the way – “customer facing”. Handy… that way we’re not giving our lunch order to the back of someone’s head). Many folk have reacted with derision to Subway dubbing their employees “Sandwich Artists”; while my own initial reaction was to have a t-shirt printed with the words “Fuck you, Food Monkey!”, I realise that this unfairly targets the employee for the company’s decision. After all, the person in the apron doesn’t take the words seriously… or at least that is my hope. I’d hate to think a request for them to go easy on the salt would result in a yelled reply of “Do not censor me! You are merely the patron, you may not restrict my creativity! The piece you have commissioned will be ready in six months, and would you like any cookies or drinks with that?”

Similar is the phasing out of the word “manicurist”, in favour of the more elaborate “nail technicians”. I didn’t realise the fingernails had such complicated wiring. Do you need to reboot your hand each time a new colour is installed? What the geniuses behind these terms don’t seem to acknowledge is that the new title doesn’t change the reality of the situation. The job isn’t lifted to the words, the words are brought down to the job; calling a dog that eats its own shit a “scatological connoisseur” doesn’t make its breath smell any better.

Plus there is a knock-on effect… as people get comfortable with the title of nail technicians, actual technicians need to work harder to reflect their job status. Thus the term “client infrastructure representatives” has been born (Google it – I’m not making this up). Before long, the artists formerly known as manicurists will realise the lustre has been taken off their titles, and they will become “client cuticle infrastructure representatives”. Then what do the tech heads do? They’ll have to move beyond words and head into noise, perhaps calling themselves “ta-DAAAA!” That kind of title gets tricky to put in print, however. Business cards of the near future will have to have a sound chip, that plays the sound of a choir when gripped.

A new layer of bizarre was added recently, and it is this that my friend brought to my attention. The virtual world Second Life is becoming a rich turf for making money and advertising for companies that exist in the plain old First Life that most of us operate in. In the midst of people starting their lives again from scratch (for male characters, this apparently even includes the necessity of purchasing a penis), IBM has set up an island in this cyberworld, recruiting people in the real world to run it. And label given for the task of advertising in Second Life?

Metaverse Evangelist.

Excuse me?

Metaverse Evangelism sounds to me like the next great celebrity religion, not something real people actually do. But no, a touch of the pseudo-holy has been thrown into corporate spin. Can we look forward to taking our tax returns to a Prophet of the Great Deduction? Perhaps we’ll soon be served by a Friar of the Immaculate Burger? We have a thousand jobs sounding more complicated and/or prestigious than they actually are, apparently the next step is to make them sound more spiritual. Well, if this is how things are going, I’m not going to miss out. I’m going to insist that a pulpit be available at all of my gigs, and each line will be delivered in the name of the Setup, the Punchline, and the Holy Laugh. Hopefully you’ll come and join the congregation, and give generously when the collection plate comes around.