First among Equals ?

For the fourth time in my life, I shall announce my presence by a rectangular strip of firm paper. This paper shall be stocked by me on my person and liberally distributed to ease the process of networking- the stuff that corporate life is made of. For the first time however, I shall be representing an educational institution. It’s a feeling of satisfaction to belong to someplace!

So why am I writing about this? Well, we recently concluded the exercise of ensuring the cards are OK before printing. That also involved, as our dear leader D put it, “making sure names and titles are ok”.

Titles? What titles? Oh, those representative posts which some of us enterprising (or cunning –depending on whether your candidate won or lost) individuals got elected to. Well, a quick glance at the sheet made me wonder whether I was sitting at one of the CII conferences at Davos or someplace equally exotic. All around me sat Vice-Presidents, Presidents, Brand Managers, Directors and what have you in full bloom! Looked like being ordinary was well…not ordinary.

But pardon me; didn’t they say only those elected could put up their titles? Were so many of us elected? Democracies don’t lie and democratically elected people, never. If there were 10 folks in a club and each of them voted to make the other Vice-something or Executive- something else, wasn’t that a proper election process? Hell, that’s right!

Tintin fanatic that I am, this reminds me of a scene from Tintin and the Broken Ear. General Alcazar is told about a drunken Tintin, who was saved from the firing squad at the last minute, saying “Long Live General Alahambra (hic)! “ The happy general immediately appoints Tintin as a colonel and his aide-de-camp. To which Colonel Diaz suggests that given there are more colonels that corporals, could not Tintin be appointed corporal? Alcazar re-affirms Tintin’s appointment and promptly demotes Diaz to corporal! Which brings up the moot question- what are all of these people going to do? There is no one left to lead!!!

For the record, the author was elected as Director to a post, but has graciously decided to spare his visiting card the blushes…