Titles & Designations

I have always observed that many youngsters are using some new salutations or titles before their names on social networking sites. These salutations consist (but not limited to) of; Er (Engineer), DJ (is that even a title), Dgr (Designer) and some more.
At first I was totally confused, because to me ER always meant Emergency Room and so seeing a name beginning with ER made me wondered what it could be until I figured out that the person was an Engineering Student. Also, 'Der' had me gone totally bonkers unless some wise guys on the internet told me that they were fashion designers.

Honestly, I dont blame these kids. Our society tends to treat people with a title or designation with more respect. Even if that title doesnt mean anything. But again, being an engineer is not the big of a deal in my opinion.

And maybe, that was one of the reasons why these poor kids are so desperate to tell the world that they are studying engineering. All the doctors get to add 'Dr' before their name, so why not Engineers?

But its not just these kids, its a very old trick played by our society to manipulate the masses.
These kids think they are doing something new, but sadly it has been an age old tradition to add a useless title before somebody's name, only to make them feel that they actually matter.

The funny thing is, they even use a fancy term for 'Title' now. The corporate world came up with this hokum. This new thing is called DESIGNATION. And most of us are ready to do anything to get that useless title to be added with our name. It doesnt matter what work you do, unless you can have a fancy designation to add with your name.

"My husband is a network engineer."
It means the mentioned chap is a technician who looks after somebody's network configuration.

-- "I am a Sr TSO (Senior Tech Support Officer)."
-- "I just cleared the IJP for a SME." (Internal Job Posting -- Subject Matter Expert)
-- "He promised he will get me into T2." (Tier 2)

These are some examples how some ordinary jobs (especially in BPOs) being glorified by fancy designations. You would be surprised to know that these so called designations dont increase your payscale. There is a different classification system for that.

Its with almost every company nowadays. People are promised average money and a fancy title. That is how our society has molded us. A person's title is more important than the work they do. And we all are working to get that desired designation.

Its just like those fancy number plates on many Indian cars, where the owners/drivers want to show that their vehicle belongs to somebody of importance. However, in reality, nobody cares.