Titles

Titles.
 
Titles take center stage when one wants to prove or substantiate a claim or thought.
 
Example:  The title of Engineer has been polluted.  There are people who studied to become an Engineer and the meaning carries weight, i.e.  Chemical, Structural, Architectural, Mechanical Engineers, etc.  Degrees carry specialization of significance.  However today others are using the title of Engineer, i.e., Sanitary Engineer (Garbage collector).  Domestic Engineer (House Cleaner) and others. 
In America, one can use any title they want that sounds good without proof.  A salesman is often referred to as a Sales Consultant.  What then is the meaning of Consultant?  How does that affect a professional Business Consultant?  Is the Business Consultant qualified to consult or is that just a fancy title?
The term Scientist is used often these days and that is supposed to mean something significant.  In our discussion on Climate Change, the term Scientist is referenced as giving weight/credence to what the so-called Scientist says.  Just because one uses a term, doesn’t necessarily make it credible.  If one studies the art of writing, can one claim to be a writing Scientist?  If so, then anyone who has written a book cold claim that they are a book Scientist. 
 
Titles are for the most part, Crap.  Providing evidence or showing related experience with what one has to say carries more weight.  Betty doesn’t require a title to convince me that she knows what she is talking about when it comes to gardening and with her books on nature.  Her experience gives her credibility.
 
There are some on this forum that have experience in various subjects and what they say is credible.  Others will question what is said and want credential proof if it is to be accepted/believed.  






Then there are those with degrees (titles) that are supposed to mean something.  We have come to realize that a degree doesn’t signify intelligence, but rather that a person has completed a prescribed course of study.

Reading your post, Abe, has me thinking about my father. In 1937, he received a degree in Engineering from Houston's Rice Institute (currently Rice University, one of the highest ranking schools in the US, then and now).

Dad's degree was unique. At the time, and maybe still, it was the school's only degree to be given for Engineering. As you mentioned, most engineers have some sort of specialization: structural, mechanincal, chemical, etc. Dad's major for his 1st three years there was Civil Engineering. As it happened, as he was beginning his senior year, the head of the Civil Engineering dept took a sabbatical. Dad still had one 3 hr required course in CE to earn his degree. At first, he was told he would have to wait a year to graduate, since that professor was the only staff member who could teach that particular course. Now, my dad, at that time, was engaged to my mom. Their plan was to get married as soon as he had finished and was settled into a good job. Spending an extra year in school was not part of his plan. He went to the dean and explained his situation. The dean was sympathetic, and said that since he had also taken most of the courses needed for a degree in mechanicl engineering, he could switch, and finish those requirements by the end of the school year. He proceeded to follow these directions. When he applied for graduation, though, the head of the mechanical division threw in a wrench, saying he had not been properly consulted, and that he did not approve of a student changing his major during his last year. The dean came up with a solution: He would be awarded a degree in engineering, without a designation for a specialty.

He went to work for Texaco as a "doodle-bugger," which was a term for the crews that went around the country looking for possible locations for drilling. After a year on that job, he felt he was established enough to marry my mother. Over the course of their first year of marriage, they lived in six or seven small towns in Texas and Louisiana. Dad had said that he wanted to be a success on his own, and would not go into the family business, but when Mom had a miscarriage that drs said could have been influenced by the frequent moves, he relented and finally agreed to his own father's insistence that he return home He was soon named Assistant Chief Engineer. His father sold controlling interest in the company to outsiders just after WWII. He decided to stay on, and before too many more years, was heading the engineering department. Soon after, the shipyard began to specialize in building offshore drilling rigs. About the time he turned 50, a new, young CEO gave him a "kick upstairs," and a new "title," as you use the term. He was told he had job security until he retired, and that he could come to work every day and play at being the Director of Research and Development. About the same time, our neighboring county decided to build a fixed-span bridge over the Intracoastal Canal, which would effectively block our city from having access to the Gulf, at least for any vessel with a high clearance (like any conventional drilling rig at that time.) The company that had been founded in the mid-19th century by my great-grandfather was at risk of going under. My dad, though, sitting at his new desk, became the primary designer of the first jack-up drilling rig, which meant that the vessel was low enough to pass under that bridge, and did not have to be finished until it was in place in the Gulf. He literally saved his family's business, even though the family was no longer in control. He continued his work on jack-up designs until his death. At that time, the shipyard received, and handed over to my mother, a large stack of telex printouts from all around the world, including countries behind the then Iron Curtain, as well as from Japan and mainland China, mourning the loss to the offshore industry.

The titles did not mean that much. To me, and to his closer friends, one of the greatest proofs of his intellect came from his sense of humor, which delighted in his spontaneous puns and wordplays, delivered with a slight warning: a crinkling of the skin around his sparkling green eyes - a characteristic I later gave to Daniel Redstone.

Thanks for the reminder. You've made my day.

Titles are like money; they are only important if you don't have any.

Shelagh, we are on the same wavelength on that one for certain.

I used to be a consultant. They said that consulting was the worlds second-oldest profession.