That's Professor Workaholic to You

One thing I like to do every day is read advice columns, like Dear Amy, Dear Abby, and Dear Prudence. In my opinion, the typical advice column could also be called Obsessive Neurotic Central, so it's like I'm reading the stories of "my people".

I read in an advice column once that some people don't like calling professors "Dr.". These people felt that academics didn't have the right to be called "Dr." since they weren't "real" doctors.

I know that a professor and a medical doctor have very different work responsibilities. Professors don't save lives or teach people how to safeguard their health (except of course for the professors who teach med students and also practice medicine). But at the same time, it takes more years to earn a master's degree and a doctorate than it does to earn a medical degree. So when I do finally complete my Ph.D., I can guarantee you that I will identify myself as "Dr." or "Professor", because I believe that I'll have earned that right.

I've been teaching college students for years now, but I don't really consider myself a professor yet; I'm not a full-time faculty member and I'm still working on my Ph.D. I've had several titles, including "adjunct", "instructor", "lecturer", and "teaching assistant", even though I was basically doing the same job under all these titles. But I have my own ideas for what my title could be, though they probably wouldn't catch on since they're too long. I still think they're fairly accurate though.

For example, instead of being an "adjunct", I might call myself one of the following:

The Grader of Papers

The Collector of Excuses from students who don't think it's necessary to come to class or turn in work on time

That Poor Instructor who practically had to arm-wrestle one of her fellow instructors for desk space in the one office that all the adjuncts/teaching assistants share whereas the professors get their own offices that they only use once or twice a week.

The Invisible Woman who never gets to go to most of the department meetings since she has no say in how the department is run

The Ultimate Multi-Tasker who works three jobs and has no time or money for vacations

Having spent years working in retail, I've found that retail employers are fond of job titles too. They use titles like "Team Member", "Sales Associate", "Client Host," and "Brand Ambassador". I think they use these fancy titles as a way to make the employees feel better about their jobs, and perhaps to try and make up for the low wages. But personally, I'd rather just be known as That Chick with the Name Tag as long as I got paid more.

Instead of "Sales Associate," I could also be called:

She Who Operates the Cash Register

The Folder of Clothes

The Maid who picks up after all the customers who believe that tossing the store's items on the floor is perfectly acceptable

Miss Smiley Face who smiles even after a customer tries on seven different outfits, each in at least two sizes and three different colors and then decides not to buy anything

The Bookseller who doesn't actually succeed in getting most people to buy books because they prefer to spend two hours in the store reading for free rather than buy anything

The Patron Saint of Patience, because ANYONE would need an incredible amount of patience to listen to the same CD played over the store's speakers OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN EVERY SINGLE WRETCHED DAY

What do you think of job titles? If you could come up with your own job title, what would you call yourself?

Side note: Stop by Theresa Milstein's blog Substitute Teacher's Saga (and follow her too if you haven't already, because she's a great blogger, writer, and teacher). She's hosting a contest where you can win a free copy of Elana Johnson's YA novel Possession.