We use labels a lot. To an extent, this is a good thing. A label tells me that a can on the shelf contains soup, or beans, and not paint thinner, which is something I’d want to know if I was hungry, or had a paint brush to clean. A label tells me that tube contains toothpaste, and not super glue (wouldn’t want to mix those up!).

However, a label only tells you what it says. A label that just says “toothpaste” doesn’t tell me if it’s mint, wintergreen, tarter control, or super whitening. To get at those things, I have to dig a bit deeper, maybe to a more specific label somewhere, or just open the cap and see.

Even a specific label might not tell me what I need to know. Do I actually like wintergreen toothpaste? The label doesn’t tell me that. To find out, I have to open up the tube and try it. Only having done that, can I assign some meaning to “wintergreen” (bleah, or yum), when used by a particular brand, and proceed accordingly.

The more complex, or nuanced the item is, the less helpful the label is. “Chicken noodle soup” tells me some things about what’s in the can, but it doesn’t tell me how much chicken is mixed in with the noodles, It only gives a very general idea of what it tastes like. To really get to know the soup, it has to be taken into my home, opened, heated in a bowl, and tasted.

How much more complex are people than soup? And yet, we label them like crazy, and hang a lot on those labels. I might be labeled an “IT system administrator”, but does that really say anything about what I do during the course of a work day (or, occasionally, night)? Yeah, it has something to do with computers, but what use is that? It doesn’t say anything about the storage networks I administer, servers, storage arrays, audits, security systems, air conditioners, 3-phase power systems, and a host of other things I deal with all the time (yes, all those really are things that are part of my IT job). Those who hang everything on that label of “IT system administrator” are missing a whole lot of what that really goes on. I’ll leave the subject of how this affects my relationship with my managers and HR for another day.

Of course, we carry a lot of labels. But even taken together all those result in a poor description of who and what we are. Maybe I have the label “kayaker”, but does that tell you where I like to paddle (hint: it ain’t white-water), or what I like to take along to eat, or when I like to paddle? Again, the labels fall far short of who we are. Like the chicken noodle soup, it takes some work to understand us at all.

There’s been a lot in the news lately about gender labels. We hang so very much on those labels, but like the soup can label, it’s very limited in it’s ability to tell you much at all about a person, if it’s even relevant at all (which, most of the time, it isn’t). Race labels are just as bad. We associate an absurd amount of information with those labels, but it’s like saying that because it’s labeled toothpaste, it’s wintergreen super-whitening and I like it.

So, let’s be a bit circumspect about labels, and be careful to distinguish what the label says and what it doesn’t. Sure, sometimes the labels help us…. if I’m looking for someone to fix my Cessna, I can skip right over those cubicle-dwelling clean-fingernailed “IT system administrators” who wouldn’t know a ratchet from an igniter plug… Oh wait… I AM an aircraft mechanic too (and do know the difference between a ratchet and an igniter plug). Maybe we should ditch the labels altogether.