Chief
The NY Times reports that the hottest executive title these days is chief. According to one of the experts quoted in the article, “It’s easier to give someone a fancier-sounding title than to give them a real bump in authority or pay.” It’s called title inflation and it’s intended to give people an edge on competitiveness. To say nothing about feeding enough egos to keep organizations dysfunctional.
When I was young, we used chief to refer to a usually male laborer in a service position whose short attention span we wanted to garner. You’d pull up and say things like: “Hey chief … how’s it going? We need 5 dollars of regular and could you check the oil?”
When I drove in Tokyo a couple of years ago they still have these guys - four to any car that would pull in. They’d run around cleaning windshields and headlights while gassing up. When you take off, they run after the car waving until you got to the street, hightailing it back to the next car waiting for service at the service station. If anybody deserved to be called chief, it was these guys.
So today the inflated title chief resurfaces. I can’t wait for the next corporate meeting where I can once again pronounce the salutation: “Hey chief, how’s it going?”
May 30th, 2005 08:11
I read once that in Japan you can tell how much status a person has at work by looking at their business card. Ironically, the more elaborate or distinguished sounding their title, the lower they are in the corporate food chain. People with real authority tend to have very simple titles.
May 31st, 2005 21:00
My favorite story about titles is a very successful bank here in Cleveland - started by a Polish family a couple of generations ago (Third Federal) - where people make up their own titles. As one might imagine, when you have to take responsibility for your brand in most cases it’s going to express some degree of civility and humility. For example, I don’t know anyone who’s self-titled themselves “chief” of anything.
June 1st, 2005 06:41
I like “Queen of the Universe,” myself.
June 1st, 2005 10:36
I call my immediate superior chief all the time. I think it helps us both relieve The Stupid™ that constant referrals to “Team Coordinator” and “Senior Manuscript Editor” seem to foster.