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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Waitress in the Sky

My sister has a "Labradoodle" named Emmy. I didn't make the word up; it's a dog, a cross between a Labrador Retriever and Standard Poodle.

You might know these types of dogs by another name: mutts.

There's nothing wrong with a mutt. They're usually loyal to a fault, and they don't have the genetic problems common to certain breeds. But for some reason these dogs are now called "Labradoodles."

A large coffee at Starbucks is a called a "Venti." Seattle's Best Coffee calls its large coffee a "Grande Supremo," which sounds like the new melty two-pound burrito at Taco Bell.

Again, what exactly is wrong with calling a large coffee...a large coffee?

The list of things now called by another name is long and stupid. Waiters are now "servers," stewardesses are now "flight attendants."

There is no such thing as a "customer service specialist." In the real world that's called working retail, and it sucks. I've done it. But I didn't delude myself that I was some sort of specialist. I'm smart enough to know that selling overpriced chocolate chip cookies in a mall didn't make me a specialist at anything other than an expert on what the minimum wage was at the time.

There's nothing wrong with working retail. It's usually the first type of job most kids get, shortly after getting a driver's license, unless they go into the food service industry, which is a nice way of saying "do you want fries with that," or "table three needs to be bussed." But those kids are under no illusions about what they do. They probably don't even know the technical terms used to refer to their jobs.

Somewhere along the way though, those same kids will start ordering "venti" coffees instead of large coffees, and will wonder where the "server" is when they've been waiting with their family for 30 minutes to place a drink order at Outback.

Those same kids, now adults, buy "Labradoodles." And now they insist on calling it a "Labradoodle," even though anyone with more than five IQ points knows to call such a dog what it is. A mutt.

Everyone loves a mutt. But these days, I really hate "Labradoodles."

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