Several years ago we hired an "experienced" pilot. Experienced sometimes means "can't fit in anywhere, so jumps from job to job, expecting each new job to conform to expectations, but ultimately quitting by leaving in the middle of the night, and letting the Chief Pilot know by sending an e-mail at 2:00 in the morning." Just saying "experienced" is a lot shorter. This pilot, who we'll call Bob, since I can't remember his name (I'm terrible with names), insisted on being called "Captain." At first, I laughed. Then I realized he was serious. So I laughed again.
At an airline, they are very formal, and call each other Captain if they are a Captain, and if they're not, they call them something else. I don't know what that is, I've never flown for an airline. When I fly into an airport where my name is not known, people will call me and other pilots, "Captain." In this case, it is the aviation equivalent of "dude."
So when Bob decided that his subordinates, which turned out to be everyone, should call him "Captain," I thought it was great. For a laugh. Remember the scene in Spies Like Us, where they're pretending to be doctors, and walk into the tent with the other doctors, and go through the whole greeting process, "Doctor," "Doctor," and so forth? Well now I felt obligated to repeat that scene every time I ran into another pilot. "Captain," "Captain," "Captain." It could go on for minutes.
At about that time I needed a login name for a program that we no longer use. I had just mentioned how pretentious I thought the whole title thing was, and it came to me. Captain Pretentious. Now whenever I need a name for something unimportant, I use it.
Disclaimer- I do not use Captain Pretentious as a login for any financial websites.
No comments:
Post a Comment