Hazards of the trades

Too much knowledge can spoil the fun. Specifically, when a person has deep knowledge of a specific process or art, it becomes difficult to consider the element in its simplicity, as most people do. Instead, the connoisseur analyzes it, often to death.

One area you can see this is language. Most people are interested in the point of communication, not its form. By contrast, writers of all types are often more interested in the form and quite critical of it. For example, writers tend to judge text as much by how good it is written as what it is trying to day. Likewise, translators, including my wife and me, immediately notice over-literal translation and source text interference, especially in menus and signs. Musicians may not even notice the total sounds due to their focus on individual performances, good and bad.  Choreographers sometimes tear down complicated dances into their component parts, negating the effects of synergy. So, language experts insist on proper language, occasionally forgetting the ultimate purpose of communication.

In a world filled with visual information, certain experts immediately focus on a specific aspect. Barbers (or hair designers, as applicable) probably focus on the cut of the hair, with a bit of a critical note I imagine. In the same way, optometrists catch the form of the frame of the glasses, generally ignored by most people unless it is violently inappropriate. Since my wife is a knitter, I see how fast she checks out any knitted object and checks if it is machine or handmade, with a comment on the skill level if the latter. Potters do not see plates as objects on which you put food but instead as works of art, or lack thereof. Like flies and light, certain professionals are immediately attracted by certain visual clues.

This attention often enters the realm of judgment. After years of assessing damage, insurance assessors probably cannot pass a dented car without doing a calculation in their head of the cost to repair it. On my favorite cooking show, Les Carnets de Julie, I watched a baguette judge name the 16 tests, no less, of a proper French bread, of which only the last was taste. For this person, a baguette is not a loaf of bread by any other name. I pity dog breeders, who find it difficult to say “what a cute dog” without trying to figure out the breed(s) of the dog and how well it would do in a show.

There are many advantages of being an expert. However, sometimes, it would be nice to enjoy the world at its face value, without adding complexity or judgment. Unfortunately, once gained, knowledge is hard to lose. As Milton might say, it is paradise lost.

What do you do for a living??

Work is work, everywhere in the world.  For most people, it means showing up somewhere at a given time, fulfilling doing specified duties and getting paid more or less money for the pleasure.  However, the name for a given job description varies from place to place and language to language.  Some professional titles are understandable only to the locals.

For examples, if you are employed in an American office as a gofer, you do not make holes in the floor.  Instead, you are a low paid employee, often the offspring of a regular employee, whose jobs is to bring items from one place to another, i.e. go for this and go for that.  For young people with proper legs and sufficient energy, it is not a bad way to make some money.  By contrast, if you are a sanitation engineer, the work involves waking up early, lifting weights and dealing with foul smelling items.  In simple terms, the person is a garbage man, an admittedly less attractive title.  At least in compensation, thanks to strong local union, such engineers do earn a nice salary even without the formal education.

In France, a verbicruciste plays an important role in society. S/he helps hundreds of thousands of people pass the empty moments of life in buses, trains, toilets and doctors’ waiting room, to name just a few, by writing crossword puzzles for their entertainment.   No doubt, every country has such selected public servants, but not many give them such a wonderful title. 

In Israel, every large organization, especially kibbutzim, must have a pkak.  Literally meaning a cork, such person must be a jack of all trades and master of none.  If he were the latter, he would not be a pkak. The job description is extremely wide and varied and can best be defined as doing anything that has to be done that is not specifically assigned to anybody or whose designated employee is not available for any reason.  In other words, the pkak does any job that has to be done now but for which there is no person to do it.  Having once worked as a pkak, I can say with certainty that the job is varied and appreciated.  In baseball, he would be called a utility infielder.

I would be interested in hearing about other unique professional titles in any language.