Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 64 posts

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#31

Post by OliverJones »

Bah. This is the English news org writing this. In the English-dominated age of sailing ships, specialist sailors had all sorts of jargon-laden job descriptions. So did weavers. The English thrived on high tech for centuries. You'd think they'd embrace this kind of obscurity.

Just because some journo doesn't understand "scrum master" doesn't make it a bad job title. (Whether scrum is a good way to do things is not a question this journo raised.)

Now, let's talk about "Chief Experience Officer" and "Chief People Officer." WTF? Title inflation, anybody?

In startups, the executives should aLL be "Chief Maintenance Officer" meaning we'll clean the toilet when it needs it as well as raise money and convince prospects to become customers.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#32

Post by dfan »

My first job was doing programming / game design / writing / composing / audio design at a startup computer game company in the 1990s. No one really had a title. When we finally decided that we should really have business cards, I got mine printed with the job title of Chaplain.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#33

Post by malloryerik »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #16
Negitivefrags wrote: post #10

Can we stop with the self-aggrandizing CxO titles while we are at it? I've had someone introduce themselves as a CTO of a company that has 4 people. How many other technical officers are there for you to be the chief of them? It sounds ridiculous.

I get what you mean, in that CxO titles sound silly. But I'm not sure what the alternative is, really - particularly when you're talking about a startup that's hopefully going to be growing a bit. It seems when you want to talk about your team, you really want to say 'This person does the business stuff, this person does the technical stuff, this person does the marketing stuff, this person helps with the technical s…

"Joe's taking care of the technical side along with Jessica, Jenny does business, and Jorge handles marketing."

There, no CxO stuff when the company is young. Maybe these people all know their "big" titles, but they don't call themselves that until it sounds appropriate.

Until then, any business cards might as well just have names without titles. Why not? At smaller sizes formalities are unnecessary.

Of course if you're trying to deceive people into thinking you're huge, this won't usually be the way to go. And on the flip side, being honestly humble can signal authenticity and trustworthiness.

This surely isn't the only way and won't always fit -- not very "fake it 'til you make it" -- but at least it does away with ridiculous President of My Garage scenarios.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#35

Post by honestoHeminway »

dfan wrote: post #32

My first job was doing programming / game design / writing / composing / audio design at a startup computer game company in the 1990s. No one really had a title. When we finally decided that we should really have business cards, I got mine printed with the job title of Chaplain.

Oh, father be with us in our hour of need, for we are going gold. Please forgive us our soon released Alpha, for we forgive our brethrens early Alphas released at full price. Amen.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#36

Post by chrisseaton »

bdcravens wrote: post #6

Is it ironic that the author is Sir Cary Cooper, who received knighthood at a birthday celebration for the Queen? It's an honor, but with so many knights running around, hasn't that title become a bit ludicrous itself?

> who received knighthood at a birthday celebration for the Queen

The Birthday Honours aren't given at a birthday celebration for the Queen. You make it sound like they're handed out at her birthday party!

The 'birthday' part of the name just means that they are the summer version of the bi-annual honours ceremonies, the other being the new year. The Queen's official birthday is a general set of official events held in the summer. It's not even anywhere near her actual birthday.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#37

Post by matthewmacleod »

malloryerik wrote: post #33
matthewmacleod wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you mean, in that CxO titles sound silly. But I'm not sure what the alternative is, really - particularly when you're talking about a startup that's hopefully going to be growing a bit. It seems when you want to talk about your team, you really want to say 'This person does the business stuff, this person does the technical stuff, this person does the marketing stuff, this person helps with the technical s…

"Joe's taking care of the technical side along with Jessica, Jenny does business, and Jorge handles marketing." There, no CxO stuff when the company is young. Maybe these people all know their "big" titles, but they don't call themselves that until it sounds appropriate. Until then, any business cards might as well just have names without titles. Why not? At smaller sizes formalities are unnecessary. Of course if you…

I would still think it sounds a bit weird to describe myself as 'the guy who handles the technical side' in a conversation, but I can see that it's an option if you're happy to be less formal!

I guess I don't generally treat CxO titles as heavy-sounding as some other people do. I wouldn't consider it at all unusual to meet a 'CTO' at a moderately small tech company, and it makes it immediately clear to me what the person does. 'Technical director' is pretty good too; I suppose 'Managing director', 'Marketing director' etc. would all fit into the same general group. Maybe that's a good middle-ground.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#38

Post by matthewmacleod »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #24
matthewmacleod wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you mean, in that CxO titles sound silly. But I'm not sure what the alternative is, really - particularly when you're talking about a startup that's hopefully going to be growing a bit. It seems when you want to talk about your team, you really want to say 'This person does the business stuff, this person does the technical stuff, this person does the marketing stuff, this person helps with the technical s…

Technical Director is a better term. (In fact, it's the job title I use). It says you are in charge of tech without implying anything about the size of your company.

Yeah, that's not actually a bad idea. Also 'Marketing director' etc.; there are reasonable equivalents for other roles.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#39

Post by matthewmacleod »

rjsw wrote: post #28
Negitivefrags wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical Director is a better term. (In fact, it's the job title I use). It says you are in charge of tech without implying anything about the size of your company.

It also makes it clear that you are a director of the company, a CxO might not be a member of the board.

I would be wary of that one though; I've been 'technical director' in the past without being 'director'.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#40

Post by pilsetnieks »

saurik wrote: post #18
pluma wrote: post #5

> Yet a nationally representative study of 1,000 British adults, with which I assisted, found that 75% of British adults thought “scrum master” was a fake job title, or didn’t know for sure if it was real. I think this bit misses the point. "Scrum master" is pretty descriptive and explicit if you are the least bit familiar with Scrum methodology . Unlike the other examples which are intentionally obscure and playful,…

Yeah... it's like: "go watch a bunch of movie credits and try to tell me what even a handful of the infinite number of weirdly specific and awkwardly named jobs actually do"; I mean... "best boy grip"? http://mentalfloss.com/article/50626/11-strange-movie-job-ti...

That's not the main point of the article though. I assume everyone in the industry knows what a best boy grip is; the problem is when the position for best boy grip is advertised as Lightning-and-Thunder Master Ninja or Rockstar Illumination Guru.
Post reply on HN