Doctor Who?

It may surprise you all to learn, with me being the shy, retiring type who never EVER complains about anything, that I have a new pet peeve. At first I thought that it was people who insisted on referring to themselves as “Doctor.” As in, “Hi, I’m the Dean, Dr. Dean and that’s my assistant Dr. Blahblahblah.” But deep down, I get it. We’re not all jaded enough with our degrees to roll our eyes and instantly think “Hurray! You have a PhD! Who doesn’t these days? I don’t know about you, but the only thing mine does is disqualify me from any legitimate employment, forcing me to be stuck working for minimum wage at this super awesome community college.” Some people are proud of their accomplishments--and want others to acknowledge them too...on a daily basis. What really bothers me is people who insist on being called Doctor by everyone they work with who fail to address me that way. For example, all official correspondence from Dr. Dean that’s addressed to Ms. LastName, even though the whole organization knows I have a PhD because I put it on my application, and I’m fairly certain it’s one of the primary reasons they hired me. For reals, it came up more than once during my interview. My point: the super-pretentious titles cut both ways, and Dr. Dean may be earning roughly 750% of my salary, but at the end of the day, we both have more or less the same degree, which entitles us to exactly the same title. So I’ll call her Dr. Dean, but goddammit, she better start sending my letters to Dr. LastName!