Titles & Labels at Work:
A waiter, bartender, chef, butler, police officer, and concierge are all careers in service. These individuals often chose purposefully roles that have site-specific titles. Not every job is promotable. Nor is everyone inclined to need a title that evokes panache to validate their professional self-worth.
Does a concierge need to become a chief concierge in-order to legitimize their career? Does a cook have to strive to be a chef? A waiter vs. maî·tre d, a bartender vs. sommelier, teacher vs. a dean, a seamstress vs. a tailor, a butler vs. a majordomo. Is a police officer looked down upon if they do not yearn to be a sergeant?
Do you define your professional self-work and prestige by your title?
Below are a few thoughts to ponder:
- does your title authentically represent who you are as a person or does it matter – is it realistic to have them in synchronicity
- does your title convey the work you are doing
- is your salary comparable to what you know is your worth or does it make you feel undervalued
- do you find yourself saying internally I AM making $ and my title is X, therefore, this is who I AM
- what are the criteria for your inner fulfillment and self-worth in your job
- why does complacency in the workplace have a dual connotation
- why does complacency often infer apathy
- if contentment means we are satisfied why does this suggest that we do not want more, are not more, and cannot achieve more
Dead End Job – What Does This Really Mean?
- your job is not promotable
- you have no other skills or talents
- nothing more for you to learn on the job, it is not challenging, and you have it mastered
- very often routine tasks that are repetitive can become monotonous and we become lazy, indifferent and careless
- do we need to demonstrate a perennial and aspirational drive for more to be seen as promotable
- maybe it is us that are in a dead end mindset vs. the job label
Ways We Can Evoke Virtue in Ourselves While at Work
- are you doing absolutely everything you can in your present job to be efficient, collegial, professional and civilized
- are you cultivating skills and learning new knowledge for the job and for yourself
- are you objectively critiquing and challenging your own performance
- discreetness, kindness, grace, patience, lack of anger or being retaliatory; have never been more needed, appreciated and highly regarded than now in the workplace
- seeing someone for whom they are sans their title is liberating
- is your job a maze or a labyrinth