After long enough, any career can smell rank

Who would have thought that little Davy Petreaus of Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., would grow up to command the U.S. central command, and after only 34 years in the Army?
Hasn’t he ever heard of lateral mobility? Who stays in the same company that long anymore? Was it the medals, the titles, the free chipped beef?
If only the private sector —where five years in the same job now counts as a career-killing rut — could tap the military mystique. After almost five years, I am among the oldtimers at this newspaper, but do I get my own driver? (For the answer, shift the following letters one alphabet place to the right: mn.)
Maybe employees would stick around longer if they could look forward to becoming reception desk commander or colonel of custodial services. Think of poor Lt. Wombat, still waiting for promotion 24 years after Capt. Kangaroo retired. And I don’t even want to get into the ugliness between sergeants Iowa and New Mexico since Captain America died.
It could be worse. George Washington, after making it to commanding general of the United States Army in 1799, wasn’t promoted to general of the Armies of the United States until 1976.
Even without uniforms and salutes in every workplace, title inflation has a firm hold these days, as we were just reminded by National Administrative Specialists Week. Woe betide anybody looking for work as a mere secretary when other resumes sport that job description.
Is this part of the same trend that turned my grade school history class into social studies? When I was growing up, Gilette made razors; now they only offer shaving systems. Then again, maybe it’s because of the advent of disposable razors and the complications they cause that the garbage man of my youth has been replaced by our modern sanitary engineer.
Of course, there are also problems with the title rewards system, as the United Federation of Planets knows only too well. As I enjoyed watching “Star Trek” TV shows and movies over the decades, it got more and more interesting to see how the writers explain either a) the same ship with an entire crew of officers whose ranks entitle them to command their own ships, or 2) crewmembers serving onboard the same ship for 30 years without getting above lieutenant. Personally, I would find the cumbersome admiral’s braids a little annoying while washing dishes.
Mirror assistant editor Drew Herman is commodore of a fleet of two kayaks.