Getting it all together

There are simply too many coordinators in the world. There are Coordinators of Investment, Coordinators of Oceanography, Coordinators of Recreation. Of Horseshoe Tossing, of Elevator Memo- rabilia, of Chickweed Restraint. My milkman is now a Coordinator of Curd and Whey Potentialities. An oil well salesman friend of mine is handing out business cards with ''Coordinator of Oleaginous Manipu- lations'' on them. Our local TV weatherman (hitherto a wet-your-thumb-and-thrust-it-into-the-air type) has taken to wearing new suits, contrary to Thoreau's advice, and has ''Coordinator of Meteorological Nonpareils'' painted in gold letters on his office door, under the gold star. I was not enormously surprised to learn the other day that we have a Sunday School Coordinator.

''Coordinators caught on,'' exclaimed a coordinator who had been following me for days, taking notes, ''because the world lacks organi- zation. People don't know what to do and need coordination.''

''I was sitting alone in my Office of Philoprogenitive Floriculture Records, wondering what to do one day,'' said an unnamed but moder- ately reliable official, ''when a Coordinator of Pencil Functions and Proclivities and staff burst into my office and began to coordinate. What a marvelous merging of disciplines, I exclaimed! Each day sees another coordinator and staff, to control the many vexing intricacies and enigmas, promulgated by the juxtaposing of what is now the Of- fice of Philoprogenitive Floriculture Records and Pencil Functions and Proclivities. It's all so exciting!''

I have sincerely tried to backpedal my qualms about the unchecked proliferation of coordinators. If coordinators could be released from where they come from a few at a time, society could somehow adjust to them, I think. It has recently come to my attention that every third person in the United States is a coordinator; of every three persons you meet on Washington Avenue, one is a coordinator. It will not be very long before every other person is a coordinator. I have heard our government decrying the proliferation of government spending, but I have yet to hear any serious debate concerning the proliferation of coordinators. As Hubert Bisslerock points out in his courageous but little-read book, Whither Coordinators?: ''If coordinators expand much further, it will become necessary to coordinate them, and we all know what that means if everybody is a coordinator!''

It may, even as I write, be too late to save us. Yet, it is incumbent upon caring citizens to ask: Are coordinators cost-effective? Don't look to me for the answer. It was all I could do to raise the question.