Period job titles

[Gareth Hughes]

I've just discovered that my brother, who changed jobs last year, is now the (or possibly merely "a") 'Technical Systems Delivery Manager' for a firm called Fidessa. A glance at their website suggests that they "provide connectivity solutions for for both the buy-side and sell-side globally", have "an unrivalled set of benchmark products", and are "headquartered in the UK".
I understand, from conversations with him, that the firm has its Head Office in the delightful town of Woking, supplies and services computer program(me)s used by bankers and stockbrokers in The City, and that he mends these program(me)s when they go wrong, or arranges for someone else to do so if he doesn't happen to have the right bit of fuse wire in his bag.
I realise that not everyone nowadays can find a job as Chief Engineer with the Clogthorpe and District Steam Printing Company, but can someone please reassure me that I'm not just being a grumpy old git to wonder what the world's coming to when a firm can call itself "Fidessa" with a straight face?
(And since you ask, yes, I probably would prefer to work for Blofield and Flegg Rural District Council, as we used to be, but it changed long before my time)

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: you are grumpy but so I am I about this, the world's gone stark raving mad regarding work. Chris never calls himself a computer programmer but something along the lines of a Senior IT Consultant in risk management. That changes though so I never remember it. The names of the computer languages are similarly hyped, FoxPro and Java and Oracle. ( though XTML and C Sharp +++ is more enigmatic)
Job hunting recently has seen me wading through mud trying to figure out what they want you to do. The question that you ask children "And what do you want to be when you grow up?" has become meaningless, though probably soon schools will be training them to say Dynamics AXAPTA Business Consultant or Configuration Analyst.

No one can understand what anyone else does anymore. My paternal great grandfather was a Water Diviner, my maternal great grandfather a miner. Everyone knew what to expect from
those titles!

 

[Nigel Watts]

The term "clerk" seems to have suffered particularly badly. My grandfather was the chief clerk of a local business. In today's language he would probably be called a Chief Financial Officer. When I joined an accountancy firm after university I was disappointed not to be an articled clerk; the title had recently been changed to trainee accountant to make it sound more modern.

 

[Flyfisher]

I used to work for various companies mostly providing IT technology (see - even I've stopped use the 'C' word*) for financial trading rooms in the City and around the world. Our stuff was fairly mainstream but it exposed me to a whole world of dubious 'snake oil' being promoted and successfully sold with the promise of giving market traders a competitive edge. Risk management, expert systems, genetic algorithms and all manner of esoteric theoretical nonsense was successfully pedalled by 'experts' with hugely impressive academic credentials. Often, the results of their work was so complex that the banks never really understood how it all worked. But of course it doesn't work - or at least it hasn't yet. But the promise that it might work combined with a customer base that has vast amounts of money to spend, and can afford to waste, means that the whole circus rolls on. And hugely lucrative it is too.



* 'computer' a quaint, historical term. Rarely used these days. Largely replaced by impenetrable acronyms.

 

[Feltwell]

The job titles in the old days made so much more sense. Who, for instance, doesn't know what a Saggar Maker's Bottom Knocker does???

http://www.thepotteries.org/jobs/bottom_knockers.htm

(let the double entendres commence!)

 

[Nigel Watts]

IT

Old hat. "IS" is the term that Chief Information Officers (those in charge of the computing department) prefer to use these days.

 

[Flyfisher]

I stand corrected (and completely unsurprised). In my defence, I only retired a few years ago so no wonder I'm already hopelessly out of date.

 

[AndrewRoberts]

I'm a Deputy Tunnel Manager - does what it says on the tin!

Before that I was a Quarry Manager.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Andrew - are you a Deputy Manager of the Tunnel, or a Manager of the Deputy Tunnel? It's not clear from your job title!

 

[Flyfisher]

Never mind puffed-up job titles, how about this for the coolest job title on the planet:
http://www.sciencephoto.com/images/download_lo_res.html?id=724180204

 

[AndrewRoberts]

Definately Deputy Manager of the tunnel(s) - cos there's also a Manager of the Tunnels.

Although we'd quite like a deputy tunnel - it would make life so much easier!

 

[LadyArowana]

Never mind puffed-up job titles, how about this for the coolest job title on the planet:
http://www.sciencephoto.com/images/download_lo_res.html?id=724180204

The photo is a tad disappointing, I would really expect him to be wearing a costume of some type, at the very least a bunny suit.

 

[LadyArowana]

Definately Deputy Manager of the tunnel(s) - cos there's also a Manager of the Tunnels.

Although we'd quite like a deputy tunnel - it would make life so much easier!

I see potential here to solve 2 problems at once. Flyfisher has an excess of moles in the garden and you want a tunnel......

 

[AMc]

I was(and still technically am) an "Experience Management Consultant" which I neither chose nor used in day to day - I apologies if the words Management Consultant have made you spit tea over the keyboard in disgust.

The "Experience Management" part came from an industry term used to describe assembling information from various sources of about the customers online experience of a web site (technical availability & response time, visitor statistics, usability and customer surveys) and turning them into things that the people responsible would understand. The "Consultant" came from not working from them directly, so being allowed to say things you normally couldn't
e.g. your customers say they hate your web site in the surveys, don't visit many pages or buy any things because your servers are constantly going wrong".
In some ways it was great fun, but my most recent experience of trying to help a company that did the equivalent of sticking its fingers in its ears and shouting Lalalalala made me fall out of love with the job.

I'm now technically on a "career break" which doesn't mean I have had a nervous breakdown, but I must get back to painting the woodwork in the hall...

 

[Penners]

can someone please reassure me that I'm not just being a grumpy old git to wonder what the world's coming to when a firm can call itself "Fidessa" with a straight face?

I absolutely assure you that you are not just being a grumpy old git to wonder what the world's coming to when a firm can call itself "Fidessa" with a straight face.

their website suggests that they "provide connectivity solutions for for both the buy-side and sell-side globally", have "an unrivalled set of benchmark products", and are "headquartered in the UK".

As for that utter Business-B@ll@cks, it was, I suppose absolutely inevitable that any company prepared to trade under that name would use the word "solutions" in its (God help me) mission statement. :evil:

Tired, hackneyed pseudo-language, posing as "business cool". They need a good slapping.

 

[Feltwell]

Tired, hackneyed pseudo-language, posing as "business cool". They need a good slapping.

:lol: You haven't been reading the Daily Mail again have you Penners?

I hate this cr@p too. A friend in a corporate pharmaceutical company was once told, with a straight face, "Taking a helicopter view is not good enough any more - you have to take a satellite view." I used to have a boss who constantly told his team to "manage my expectations" and "there are no problems, only opportunities to excel". Yes, he was a complete dick.

 

[Flyfisher]

So, looking under the bonnet and from the get-go, we need to incentivise to maximise on the low-hanging fruits. After all, without a pre-plan, you can’t turn a tanker around with a speed boat change going forward. And, if we actually think outside the box and facilitate an idea shower with stakeholders, taking action forward together, we must be able to develop the holistic, cradle-to-grave approach of our challenges. Perhaps if we touch base offline and conversate the pre-plan when you have a window. Remember, my door is open on this issue, I’m still optimistic that, working with our strategic partners, the issues and challenges will feed through the service delivery pipeline.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

http://bankbabble.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/buzzword-bollocks/

 

[Feltwell]

And apparently you can now get Bullshit Bingo as an iPhone application (I can't quite bring myself to say "app"):-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword_bingo

I can see that being popular!

 

[AMc]

We were playing buzzword bingo with paper and pens >10 years ago. It was an opportunity to maximise the fun factor of the monthly employee interface opportunity.

In the end my boss was so fond of "new businessese" that I used to invent them and see if he would pick them up. I don't remember him trying "lets see if it sticks to the wall" but I did use it in his company and it was taken in context and no one laughed.

 

[Penners]

A friend in a corporate pharmaceutical company was once told, with a straight face, "Taking a helicopter view is not good enough any more - you have to take a satellite view."

So - if I understand the principle correctly - the farther away you are, the better things look?

:roll: