Within the confines of my room, I have been railing against job title inflation that is taking place in the corporate world, and how ordinary people seem to like the idea that their titles now seem so very appealing. When I was a teenager in mid 1990s, we used to have telephone operators manning the lines at PTCL to help people find the phone numbers of their acquaintances or someone with whom they needed to establish contact. Now people in call centers doing identical jobs — helping people with tasks like finding their lost parcels, lost passwords, reactivating their dormant accounts, helping them reset their WiFi devices, or selling them coverage plans — are called Customer Service Executives.
I once watched a skit on this very topic, which I have not been able to locate, where the author, taking into account this diabolical trend of corporate title inflation, predicted that a couple of decades in the future we would not have sweepers and cleaners, instead we would have hygiene scientists (I am paraphrasing), ensuring our continued enjoyable existence by taking out the trash. We could also have expert chemical applicators and household germ warfare experts instead of mere cleaners.
With the cost of living outpacing the increase in salaries by more than 4–6 times globally, what in the world is a person whose salary has dramatically lost its purchasing power going to do with an even bigger word in his or her job title? With ordinary people becoming increasingly poorer and at a rapid rate, job title inflation is a horrendous, despicable joke to satisfy a person’s need for more money to make ends meet. In the 1990s when inflation was dramatically low and ordinary people without bombastic job titles previously had the money to buy at least new clothes, the last two decades’ government policies will force a majority to start relying on second-hand clothes, yet they would still be telling people that they hold a truly impressive-sounding job while wearing second-hand clothes.
I decided to write it all after reading a recent advertisement posted by Mind Bridge BPO operating in Lahore calling their customer service agents “Champions”. They are offering their so-called champions 100,000 PKR per month. When I was still working here in Lahore in 2001 in a software house, TRG had posted a big advert in Kalma Chowk inviting applications from people fluent in English and offering them 40,000 PKR. The salary offered by Mind Bridge now in 2023 is 2.5 times the salary that TRG was offering in 2001, yet the cost of living has increased by approximately 6 times across the spectrum. When it comes to housing and petrol, the prices have increased over 8 times what they were in 2001. At this rate of increase in the salary, the so-called “Champion” would be not only a famished person but also dressed in second-hand clothes, as well.
If one were to accept the title or descriptor used by Mind Bridge for their eventual employees, “Champions”, then to enjoy some non-essential items like ice cream or gourmet quality food twice or thrice a month or so, the Mind Bridge’s “Champion” would have to revert to Neanderthal’s way of living: wearing loincloth while at home, eating uncooked food to save on gas bills, and living in claustrophobic ghettos somewhere to make ends meet. Welcome to Lahore and meet the new “Champions” in town: the famished, half-naked people living like Neanderthals to enjoy some ice cream and gourmet food twice or thrice a month.
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