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February 26, 2005

What is happening to job titles?

Flying home from a glorious but entirely blogless vacation in Hawaii, I found cause to reflect on job titles and how they have increasingly become messages themselves and seem to be going through some very strange and interesting contortions in the process. Specifically I found it really interesting, that during the lovely, somewhat cheezy, Aloha- and Mahalo-filled flight preparation video that they referred the in flight staff as "customer experience agents."

Wow. That is a long way from "stewardess" which I understand had to change because of its sexest undertones. But why they move away from "Flight Attendant." Maybe that just wasn't cool or modern or elevated enough for an industry plagued with bankruptcies or near bankruptcy, longer and longer lines, more security issues, strikes, and low wages for attandants/agents or whatever you want to call them. Maybe they read something about CRM and thought they ought to get with it. (By the way, no complaining. I like Hawaiian Air. It's quaint. I like the in-flight entertainment with really cheezy Don Ho style music videos, the friendly "experiments" with inter-Island assigned seating and they generally casual attitude - which makes this title even more incongruous.)

Who was this title change aimed at? Employees? I have long heard of title inflation. In fact an acquaintance once bemoaned the "debasement of the currency" at his former employer with everyone getting promoted to VP and SVP etc. as an employee retention strategy.

Supposedly fun or cute titles are interesting. They seem to arise from an effort to maintain consistency with the brand character. Take a look at the titles of the folks at Cranium. They are a whimsical company so they ought to have whimsical titles, like Richard Tait (co founder and grand poobah) and Whit Alexander (co founder and chief noodler). Seems better than a lot of the other Chief business school buzzword Officer title that were especially en vogue in the late 1990s.

At the same time as all this inflation has gone on, I have noticed another interesting trend. Embracing insults and elevating them into praise. Clearly it used to be an aspersion to be called a geek. But now it is more than cool, it is an important job qualification, a badge of honor and even a branding device.

Geeksquad is the 24 hour computer support "task force" (from Best Buy) that makes being a geek seem as cool as being an FBI agent. For more geek love check out Think Geek, where, to borrow from Crosby Stills Nash and Young, you can "Let Your Geek Flag Fly" (originally "Freak Flag" another instance of embracing an insult - then it was long hair not pocket protectors).

Finally, I leave you with a wonderful site where you can come up with your own "bulls__t" job titles, inflated, distorted or otherwise. Here are some of the ones I generated:

• Senior Paradigm Planner
• Senior Implementation Orchestrator
• Dynamic Communications Coordinator
• Customer Creative Architect
• Future Usability Specialist
• Legacy Directives Technician

Where do I send my resume?

Posted by rich at February 26, 2005 03:34 PM

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Posted by: justmonica at April 13, 2005 05:01 PM

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