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Business Ranks

Some days it feels like I'd die for some honesty from the management.
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Personally, I despise pretension. I find it prevalent especially in job titles. Maintainence engineer? Janitor. Petrochemical Distribution Expert? he's the guy who pumps your gas. There's all manner of executive management assistant supervisor engineer stasis- controller type job titles out there.

I propose a system where you know exactly where you stand. start with "lackey" "minion" "underling" work up to "henchman" (or the more progressive "henchperson"), up past "vassal" to "lord" and then "overlord" then you get positions like "sultan" and finally at the top, something grandoise like "Czar/Tsar of microcorp"

granted, some more standard nomenclature is warrented.

schematics, Feb 08 2005

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       Your proposed titles seem as arbitrary as any. I see no advantage.
bristolz, Feb 08 2005
  

       I agree with bristolz. Your titles aren't entirely too meaningful without some sort of physical or emotional reward. I propose that you institute an entirly feudal system where there is actually power deligated by means of these titles.
evilsheep, Feb 08 2005
  

       some people don't ever attain 'sultan' or 'overlord' in their lifetimes whether they would like to or not. To then refer to someone as an 'underling' because they do a job that is somehow of a standard less than someone else - wreaks of pretension by the person handing out such derisive names. I imagine a janitor or the guy who pumps gas, prefer more important sounding names so they can have some sense of importance in their job contributions.   

       Janitors who clean up after you and people who pump your gas have different reasons for doing the jobs they do and to refer to them in a negative way is kind of insulting.
benfrost, Feb 08 2005
  

       2nd liutenent, 1st liutenent, captain, major, lite colonel, full colonel, general, etc. paygrade matches title, very standardized, no question who is what.   

       iow, baked.
dentworth, Feb 08 2005
  

       To reinforce dentworth's comment - anyone who has spent any time at all in the military could disabuse you of the remedy possible from strict rank titles. Some of worse forms of cracked-pot job-title aggrandizement can be found in army "specializations". You'll never stay ahead of this one. Nothing's in a name really, but I'd be happy if management would just leave a name alone long enough for a person to feel the chafe of it. That's only honest. I can take tremendous pride in the ditch I dig, but false praise just takes the wind out of me. My dad wasn't a hired-hand like grandpa - he got promoted to employee. Just when we started to get our minds around that division of blue/white collar we got promoted to associates - and then to team-members. Sounds elevating, but it's really just a sideways moving target. I do find it insulting, whether recieving or having to administer it. Only in rare cases it aspires to more than manipulative flattery.
JungFrankenstein, Feb 08 2005
  

       Just add your pay to the end of your title. That's the true indicator of your rank in the corporate world.
Worldgineer, Feb 08 2005
  

       Some of these come from the pathological desire of humans to be "accurate". I think "Bus driver" is fine, but somewhere someone said, "but actually s/he also opens and closes the doors, we really should call her a "bus operator". Just so that everyone knows that she does more than drive a bus. And so she was.   

       Same reason people don't drive cars any more; they drive vehicles. Because someone said "hey wait, technically a pick-up truck isn't a car." So now no one can use the word car anymore, even people who have cars. It's all motor vehicles. That's why reading your auto insurance contract is so complicated.
phundug, Feb 08 2005
  

       New title suggestion for all: Doer.
Worldgineer, Feb 08 2005
  

       Doer? That smacks of corporate optimism and may be complemented with the job title equivalent of Ren's Apathetic Twin: procrastinator.
calum, Feb 08 2005
  

       Procrastination is an action.
Worldgineer, Feb 08 2005
  

       Indeed, it's a hobby.
Detly, Feb 09 2005
  
      
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