Job titles
Aug 31, 2017 6:52:46 GMT
Post by onlyMark on Aug 31, 2017 6:52:46 GMT
Probably long before the man who empties your dustbin started, tongue in cheek, calling himself a refuse collection engineer, people have "adjusted" their job title to make it sound something more important.
I understand it is now the trend to alter job titles for more reasons than just to inflate your position. I have caught an article on the BBC whereby the CEO of a steakhouse chain in the US has banned the use of "employee" and has replaced it with "inner guest", as opposed to the customers, who are now outer guests.
“I think ‘employee’ is an awful word,” he says. “Who wants to be an employee? It just isn’t something you strive toward.”
Elsewhere, the Human Resources Dept has become the department of culture and organisation, there are now ‘innovation sherpas’ at Microsoft, ‘fashion evangelists’ at Tumblr and ‘digital prophets’ at AOL, you can rid your company of a customer service department and replace it with a group of ‘happiness heroes’.
www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170830-why-do-some-companies-ban-certain-words
A professor of organisational psychology and health at Manchester Business School says, "Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation. And if there’s one thing our most desirable industries need less of, then it’s that."
www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170628-its-time-to-put-a-stop-to-ludicrous-job-titles
If I want to search for a job in my field, whatever that may be, then searching using the term guru or sherpa or prophet or genius wouldn't help me much at all. Trendy job titles are stupid and because they are trendy, and as per what a "trend" is, they are not sustainable nor accurate and the sooner we get back to plain speaking and also cutting out jargon, the better.
Inner guests, my arse, they are people who work for you, thus employees as they are employed. Guests aren't.
For a short time I worked as a call centre employee for a major and upmarket hotel booking company. During the training I was often bombarded with jargon and given advice on the use of language, like never saying the word no. I often asked for clarification of certain points, much to the irritation of the trainer(s) who had lived with certain terms and understood them implicitly, whilst they were new to me/us. I didn't want to have misunderstandings and after she explained something I'd use basic simple English to say the same thing saying, "Ah, you mean....."
She gave us all sorts of coping strategies to avoid the use of 'no', it was verboten to utter it.
I asked her, "Just to be clear about this, are their circumstances where we can say no?"
She replied, "No."
I raised my eyebrows at her, "Shouldn't you say, "there are alternatives.... etc"?" Throwing back at her some of the avoidance strategies she tried to instil into us.
I then asked if we could role play a little, me and her, to illustrate what she meant and for a 'fuller understanding'. She was late twenties, very attractive and obviously spent quite some time looking after herself. I would try and get her outright to say no.
My first question was, "Can I take you out for dinner tonight?"
After colouring up, hesitating ans spluttering for a second or two, she put her game face on and did well to avoiding saying the dreaded word to my subsequent probing questions.
We eventually parted not on the best of terms though.
Rant over for now.
(The training was quite boring but it was enlivened one day by a Syrian/Turk lad. Bear in mind this is a German company and we are in Germany being trained by Germans. We were employed to just book and not sell hotel rooms and we were separated into English, German, Spanish and Arabic speakers, though the company working language was English (good for me then).
One day we were covering the posh hotels in the Middle East for familiarisation. The trainer was new and being shadowed by an experienced one from the HQ. He expressed the opinion that Germans were held in high regard in the Middle East and wondered why particularly it was so.
The lad said, "I know why."
"Why?"
"Because you tried to kill all the Jews."
You could hear a pin drop - apart from me who fell off the chair laughing.)
As usual for me, a bit of a digression at the end, but, the point being, call a spade a spade will you when you are using job titles. It avoids all confusion and makes it easier for all of us.
I understand it is now the trend to alter job titles for more reasons than just to inflate your position. I have caught an article on the BBC whereby the CEO of a steakhouse chain in the US has banned the use of "employee" and has replaced it with "inner guest", as opposed to the customers, who are now outer guests.
“I think ‘employee’ is an awful word,” he says. “Who wants to be an employee? It just isn’t something you strive toward.”
Elsewhere, the Human Resources Dept has become the department of culture and organisation, there are now ‘innovation sherpas’ at Microsoft, ‘fashion evangelists’ at Tumblr and ‘digital prophets’ at AOL, you can rid your company of a customer service department and replace it with a group of ‘happiness heroes’.
www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170830-why-do-some-companies-ban-certain-words
A professor of organisational psychology and health at Manchester Business School says, "Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation. And if there’s one thing our most desirable industries need less of, then it’s that."
www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170628-its-time-to-put-a-stop-to-ludicrous-job-titles
If I want to search for a job in my field, whatever that may be, then searching using the term guru or sherpa or prophet or genius wouldn't help me much at all. Trendy job titles are stupid and because they are trendy, and as per what a "trend" is, they are not sustainable nor accurate and the sooner we get back to plain speaking and also cutting out jargon, the better.
Inner guests, my arse, they are people who work for you, thus employees as they are employed. Guests aren't.
For a short time I worked as a call centre employee for a major and upmarket hotel booking company. During the training I was often bombarded with jargon and given advice on the use of language, like never saying the word no. I often asked for clarification of certain points, much to the irritation of the trainer(s) who had lived with certain terms and understood them implicitly, whilst they were new to me/us. I didn't want to have misunderstandings and after she explained something I'd use basic simple English to say the same thing saying, "Ah, you mean....."
She gave us all sorts of coping strategies to avoid the use of 'no', it was verboten to utter it.
I asked her, "Just to be clear about this, are their circumstances where we can say no?"
She replied, "No."
I raised my eyebrows at her, "Shouldn't you say, "there are alternatives.... etc"?" Throwing back at her some of the avoidance strategies she tried to instil into us.
I then asked if we could role play a little, me and her, to illustrate what she meant and for a 'fuller understanding'. She was late twenties, very attractive and obviously spent quite some time looking after herself. I would try and get her outright to say no.
My first question was, "Can I take you out for dinner tonight?"
After colouring up, hesitating ans spluttering for a second or two, she put her game face on and did well to avoiding saying the dreaded word to my subsequent probing questions.
We eventually parted not on the best of terms though.
Rant over for now.
(The training was quite boring but it was enlivened one day by a Syrian/Turk lad. Bear in mind this is a German company and we are in Germany being trained by Germans. We were employed to just book and not sell hotel rooms and we were separated into English, German, Spanish and Arabic speakers, though the company working language was English (good for me then).
One day we were covering the posh hotels in the Middle East for familiarisation. The trainer was new and being shadowed by an experienced one from the HQ. He expressed the opinion that Germans were held in high regard in the Middle East and wondered why particularly it was so.
The lad said, "I know why."
"Why?"
"Because you tried to kill all the Jews."
You could hear a pin drop - apart from me who fell off the chair laughing.)
As usual for me, a bit of a digression at the end, but, the point being, call a spade a spade will you when you are using job titles. It avoids all confusion and makes it easier for all of us.
