As those who know me will testify, I’ve never been too fussed with job titles. I’ve had a few and most are generally meaningless. I’ve always been a fan of a job title scheme based around animals Code Monkey, Sales Weasel, that kind of thing.
These may be ridiculous, but I have started to notice and even more ridiculous trend. Trying to make fairly uninteresting jobs sound more exotic by the use of a really over-stated job title. I was in a jewellers recently and was served by a very competent and pleasant person whose name badge proclaimed the title of ‘Sales Executive’.
Now, I’ve worked in a shop before, I’ve stocked the shelves, bashed the till and NEVER, for a single second, did it EVER feel like I was doing anything vaguely ‘executive’ (it might have been that I had a brightly coloured sweatshirt on).
I’ve seen many other examples of this recently (none of which I can remember sadly, yeah, I know, not exactly well researched this post) but you all** know what I mean, I bet you’ve seen it too.
I’d like to think that no one is fooled by this, especially not those with the names on their lapels. Sure, it makes it better when you go home and tell your family what job you’ve just got.
You can see the Royle Family-esque scene were Anthony comes home and says “I’ve got a job as a Sales Executive” and his Mum and Nana both say “Oooh, Executive”.
Thankfully, trusty old Jim would retort with “Executive my arse”. Well said Jim.
I’m not having a go at the people with these silly titles. Far from it. Good luck to them all. I have to take issue with the idiot HR ‘Executives’ that think this kind of thing is a good idea. Are they fooling anyone? “Executive eh? Wonder if I’ll get a car, maybe an M3?”
Sheesh.
Website of the day:
The art and photography of the amazing Laurin Rinder, because its his birthday today. And he’s a bit good too.
Track of the day:
The Private Psychedelic Reel by the Chemical Brothers has stood the test of time well.
I’d also like to give a special pop-tastic commendation to ‘Come Undone’ by Duran Duran which just came on as I was typing.
** ‘all’ – who am I kidding!
