Lumen 21-9, 2.0

Job Titles

 

Posted – September 23, 2021

 

Irrelevant tid bit – Remember Teamwork spelled backwards is Krow Meat

 

 

Almost every job has a title and this is important as it gives us an identity and defines our place in our work environment.  Job titles, like nearly everything else, evolve over time.  Not long ago most offices had one or more clerical secretaries, but as computers with word processing programs appeared on everyone’s desk, typing came close to disappearing from the clerical secretary’s job.  Consequently, today clerical secretaries are rare, but Administrative Assistants are all over the place.  Other jobs have also evolved and titles changed to reflect real or imagined changes in responsibilities: dog catchers are animal control specialists, game wardens are conservation officers, trashmen are sanitation workers, cooks are chefs, stewardesses are flight attendants, waiters and waitresses are servers (do servers get a bigger tip?), and prostitutes are sex workers.

 

In many cases the longer the title, the less important the job.  Let’s take a look at the U.S. Department of the Interior.  Its chain of command looks like this:

 

President of the United States (POTUS, a good acronym is useful and appealing)

Secretary of the Interior

Deputy Secretary of the Interior

Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife

Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

 

All of these are important jobs, but the single-word titles are where the real decisions are made.  The others are valuable helpers, but not on the spot to be the decider.

  

Superintendent of Documents  

When I was a high school student at St. Fidelis Seminary, I had limited access to material on birds and biology, or at least my limited imagination limited my access to information, in any case I felt like I had limited access.  The school library had three books on birds

which I devoured first, then went searching for more: remember this was a time before the internet and interlibrary loan.  Somehow I discovered the Government Printing Office which produced a catalogue of available publications.  In the early 1960’s this catalogue was not very big and it only had 20-30 titles dealing with birds, wildlife, and conservation.  For instance, one of the books was the Life Histories of North American Blackbirds, Orioles, Tanagers, and Allies by Author Cleveland Bent (one of those names that just has to have three parts*).  This is part of a 26 volume set of everything known about American birds in the early 1900’s

and the Government Printing Office only had this one volume for sale.  Of course, I bought it.  These life histories were meant mainly to be reference books, but in my teenage enthusiasm I read the whole thing from cover to cover, mainly during physics class, in part the result of a really boring teacher.

To order books from the Government Printing Office you communicated with the Superintendent of Documents, what a great title!  Can you imagine at the end of the day standing tall looking at all the documents lined up on their shelves, and you control where they go!  The power and prestige are almost too much to grasp.

 

Second, Second Assistant Director

In movie credits I have noticed the title of Second, Second Assistant Director – what does this person do?  Sounds like they would get coffee for the director (the full director), but no, that is likely the job for the first, second assistant director or is that the same as the actual second assistant director, so what is left for the second, second assistant director to do?

Because I know next to nothing about making movies, I searched the internet for information.  It seems that the second second assistant director is a real job, not just something you give to your niece/nephew for a summer job.  Quoting from

 https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/second-second-assistant-director-70542/

“The second-second assistant director serves to lighten the load of the 1st AD and 2nd AD, working under their direction and responsible for assembling and directing extras, coordinating on-set vehicles, managing PAs, preparing call sheets and production reports, helping to make complicated shoots (stunt-heavy, massively crowded scenes, etc.) go smoothly, keeping lines of communication open, and generally making sure everybody has everything they need.

“Second-second is basically a caretaker for the whole crew,” says Marcus Friend, 2nd 2nd AD.” 

  

“Salaries for a 2nd 2nd AD are not fixed and vary depending on the project and (especially) how many hours they work since they tend to be required for just a short amount of time on a production. However, according to a report by the Directors Guild of America, the 2nd 2nd AD is entitled to minimum earnings of between $2,835 and $4,102 per week.”  For a 52 week work schedule that comes to $147,420 – $213,304/year, not bad for a job that has a long, hard to understand title.

 

Examiner of Sea Journals

Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808) was the Examiner of Sea Journals or Examiner of Ship Journals for the English East India Company, producing an annual series of charts, plans, views, and memoirs gleaned from the writings of ship captains.  Sometimes the information he presented was pretty wild, such as this description of Australia years before it was explored by Europeans.

  

    The number of inhabitants in the Southern Continent is probably more than 50 millions        considering the extent, from the eastern part discovered by Juan Fernandez, to the western     coast seen by Tasman, is about 100 deg. of longitude, which in the latitude of 40 deg.            amounts to 4596 geographic, or 5323 stature miles.  This is a greater extent than the            whole civilized part of Asia, from Turkey to the eastern extremity of China.  There is at        present no trade from Europe thither, though the scraps from this table would be sufficient     to maintain the power, dominion, and sovereignty of Britain, by employing all its                manufacturers and ships.  Whoever considers the Peruvian empire, where arts and                industry flourished under one of the wisest systems of government, which was founded        by a stranger, must have very sanguine expectations of the southern continent, from            whence it is more than probable Mango Capac, the first Inca, was derived, and must be        convinced that the country, from whence Mango Capac introduced the comforts of                civilized life, cannot fail of amply rewarding the fortunate people who shall bestow letters     instead of quippos (quipus), and iron in place of more awkward substitutes.

   

Business Cards

In most cases your job title is given to you by someone else, but if you own your own business, you have choice.  A friend of mine was trying to make a living as a stand-alone, unaffiliated (not part of a consulting firm) biological consultant  and he knew that he was not the only person on that track.  Many of these free-standing consultants listed themselves on their business cards as President of Consulting Firm X.  In many cases this was a dead giveaway that the consulting firm had only one member.  To overcome this dilemma, my friend called himself “vice-president” on his business card, giving the impression that he was part of a larger, and therefore more reliable, operation.  I don’t know if this got him more business or not.

 

Now I am supposed to say that the best job title is “mother” or ”father”.  I won’t argue that, but it has been done.

 

 

*  Ornithology is over endowed with three-name heroes, starting with John James Audubon, then on to Author Cleveland Bent; Edwin Way Teale; Olin Sewell Pettingill, Jr.; Roger Tory Peterson; Louis Agassiz Fuertes; Edward Howe Forbush; and George Miksch Sutton.  The middle name seems to be the key to distinctiveness (except for Audubon): these middle names may be family names such as the mother’s maiden name?