What's in a title?

Some people get very het up about job titles.  It’s not just the snob element: after all, the different degrees of graduation between, say, a Digital Sales Executive, a Senior Digital Sales Executive, a Digital Sales Manager and a Senior Digital Sales Manager can be not just a question of status, but also of salary level.

Your parents may well recall street cleaners/binmen being called ‘Scaffies,’ whereas now they are Waste Disposal Operatives.  In the army, the people responsible for cleaning the latrines were known, albeit unofficially, as *expletive deleted*-house Orderlies. Personnel has morphed into Human Resources and the influence of America is felt by senior Executives now being called Vice Presidents rather than Directors. It seems the one thing you are not allowed to do is call a spade a spade.  However, that may be changing…

As revealed by a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla has officially changed Chief Executive Elon Musk’s job title to “Technoking.” In addition, the company’s CFO, Zach Kirkhorn, is now be known as “Master of Coin.” Presumably, the latter change reflects Tesla’s  investment of over $1bn in Bitcoin and Mr Musk’s repeatedly posting messages about cryptocurrency on social media. But where does this all lead?  Perhaps, when it comes to job titles, the army had it right when it came to those tasked with cleaning the toilets?  Could it be that instead of the euphemistic “Customer Happiness Team” we can return to the more honest “Complaints Department?”  Should management accountants actually be called “Bean-counters” (or, more realistically, Unwanted Financial Results Investigators)? And should the best recruitment consultants be called “Magicians” – because we know how to pull rabbits out of a hat when no-one else can find them there….?

Michael Phair, Operations Director, Be-IT