From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 22 August

The world is becoming more pretentious with each passing day. Everyone wants a fancy title. I imagine it massages their ego and makes them feel more important.

PATHETICALLY, they are bandied with such smugness and self-importance. Many years ago I was asked to front a theatrical venture. At the press call for the launch of the idea one of those pompous entertainment reporters – you know the sort: they have a remote control and they think they’re in showbusiness – enquired about my title. I tried to avoid the question, ducking-and-weaving as best I could because I think it’s so silly. Everyone has to be in a pigeon-hole; however, she was not daunted and persisted. Finally, in exasperation, and to close-down the question, I said: “My title? The Boss!”

In days of yore, Managing Director was the ultimate title for a man. He had a private secretary – a job which carried enormous responsibility. In a large company, the other men in the organisation used the typing pool for their letters, which was a hot-bed for romances in spite of the enforced working silence, and the ever-watchful supervisor.  Many a happy union started over sheets of carbon paper. The private secretary was, invariably, the soul of discretion, and powerful. Quite often a spinster who lived with her mother – her finance having been killed at the war – she ate her lunch at her desk and was the personification of patience and impeccable manners. She arrived and left exactly on-time. Her work could not be faulted. Every message was correctly recorded, and passed-on; she took Pitman’s shorthand at 120-words a minute, and typed 80-plus words a minute on a Remington manual typewriter with a blue and red ribbon. She wore sensible, plastic sleeve protectors and her letters were perfection (no spelling mistakes or grammatical solecisms), correctly laid-out with indented paragraphs and double-spacing between full stops. Like the dodo, private secretaries have become extinct; replaced by an Executive Personal Assistant, (sometimes male), whose phone is permanently on automatic answer, and who is far too important, and certainly too busy being busy, to talk with anyone who might telephone, regardless. God forfend they should be expected to return a phone call.

Back in 2016, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the Centrelink, robo debt collection letter controversy. The public servant who acted as frontman for the crisis engulfing the nation’s welfare system was Hank Jongen. Variously, and erroneously as it transpired, he was introduced in television and radio interviews as “the general manager” of Centrelink, or the Department of Human Services. Everyone assumed he was the person at the top, or close to the top; a real decision-maker fronting the media to explain and defend the department activities. Mr. Jongen was not an operational or policy decision maker. He was a spin doctor; a communication and media spokesman. Everyone was misled by the General Manager epithet; a misconception which Mr Jongen and his numerous spinners made no attempt to correct. The Minister responsible was nowhere to be seen.

It seems the posher the title, the happier the incumbent. No-one wants to be an Indian – only a Chief – exactly like Mrs. Proudie from Barchester Chronicles. One has to smile at the highfalutin’ titles: shop assistants are retail sales associates; hotel receptionists are customer service agents; a swimming pool lifeguard is a wet leisure attendant; anyone with a paper-round is a media distribution officer; radio announcers are content providers; painters and decorators are colour distribution technicians; bartenders – or a drunk’s labourer as they were in my days behind the bar – are beverage dissemination officers!

When it comes to titles, I don’t care what you call me, so long as I am ‘the boss’!

The Boss can be heard every Monday morning – 10.30 – on radio 3BA and contacted via [email protected].