Steve SmithMar 15
So I recently discovered that a shitpost I made about job titles on the company network is now evidence in a court case. This may be my finest hour.
Show threadD Ingram

@tarkasteve Having worked for a US multinational I so feel this. The additional idiocy was that we weren't allowed to state job grades because that was 'sensitive PII', but Aus people stuck with Grad, Eng, Snr Eng, Prn Eng, and a rare handful of Snr Prn Eng. Funny how that mapped P1 to P5. Apparently there was a P6 grade but nobody in Australia had it.

So strange now in $currentJob to have job grade listed in the staff directory.

Mar 15 at 8:07amTusky
Show threadTubemeisterMar 15
@ingram @tarkasteve I’ll bet that’s not meant to be “Senior Porn Engineer”, but I can’t figure out what it should be.
Show threadPlay Ball and Fight FascistsMar 15

@Tubemeister @ingram @tarkasteve

At my company, it's Principal.

Show threadWillMar 15

@Tubemeister @ingram @tarkasteve "Principal". Other completely meaningless terms I've seen sprinkled into job titles like unbelievably pretentious confetti are "staff" and "distinguished".

Personally, if anyone foolishly gives me authority over job titles, I'm making "extremely senior engineer"s.

Show threadTubemeisterMar 15
@whbboyd @ingram @tarkasteve I’ve been going by “General Specialist” for a while. ;-)
Show threadAlex Celeste, Princess Consort of BurnoutMar 15

@Tubemeister i have an unreadable paygrade code but my customer-facing title has been "Elder Witch" for a few years now 😁

@whbboyd @ingram @tarkasteve

Show threadD IngramMar 15
@Tubemeister @whbboyd @tarkasteve Specialist Generalist works for me
Show threadNoratriebMar 15
@whbboyd @Tubemeister @ingram @tarkasteve Senior Engineer, Senior Senior engineer, Senior Senior Senior Engineer
Show threadTubemeisterMar 15
@noratrieb @whbboyd @ingram @tarkasteve At some point you'd just call it "Isambard"
Show threadD IngramMar 15
@noratrieb @whbboyd @Tubemeister @tarkasteve Chief Engineers are like that. Is it the Project Chief, the Program Chief, the Division Chief or the Company Chief? I started calling the company chief the "chief chief chief" and it started to stick, to his disgust.
Show threadD IngramMar 15

@whbboyd @Tubemeister @tarkasteve The title inflation got to the point there are now Distinguished Senior Technical Fellows. Because having an office and carpark* as a Senior Tech Fellow wasn't enough.

US only. No carparks or offices for Australia

Show threadSteve SmithMar 15
@whbboyd @Tubemeister @ingram there were a lot of title changes, but it was changing "principle" to "staff" that was the most egregious, as "staff engineer" just sounds like "general shit-kicker" in Australian. Hence the localisation joke.
Show threadWillMar 16

@tarkasteve @Tubemeister @ingram "Staff" is by far the funniest to me, because "staff engineer" is… uh, pretty poorly-defined, actually (I've never worked a place with "staff" in the standard engineer title hierarchy, but it typically slots in either in place of or above "principal" in the "extremely senior engineer" range), but always a prestigious title, while the term "staff" in *every* other context is dismissive. Your staff is, like, your janitors.

(To be clear, in case it's not, I think this attitude falls somewhere between "ill-advised" and "psychopathic". Your office will stop functioning just as quickly with no janitors as with no white-collar denizens.)

Show threadD IngramMar 16

@whbboyd @tarkasteve @Tubemeister Where I am now "staff" means the doers and not the decision makers (Board, EGMs etc).

I've found US folk get very particular about titles and hierarchy. Their tech gods (Senior Tech Fellows) are not used to being called out by pleb engineers either, which makes it a bit of a sport here. Being competent in more than one area confusing many US eng too.

Show threadTubemeister6d ago
@ingram @whbboyd @tarkasteve I’m not even entirely sure what my official title is. Probably something boring like “unix engineer”. Place is too small and flat charted to go full on “special senior fluffer to the fellow” or whatever, and I like it that way.
Show threadSteve Smith6d ago
@ingram @whbboyd @Tubemeister Which brings us to the 'en_US' part of the joke; there's a certain type of org where everyone thinks they're "Senior VP of Development" or whatever. Movie studios are famous for it.
Show threadSteve Smith6d ago

@ingram @whbboyd @Tubemeister "Tyrone: Being #3 in Al-queda is like being a "creative vice president" at a Hollywood studio. There are dozens of them ... and they are expendable."

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html

Lunch Discussions #145: The Crazification Factor

John: ... I mean, what will it take? That last speech literally made no sense . It was crazy drunken bar talk! Islamic radicals are lik...

Show threadTubemeister6d ago

@whbboyd @tarkasteve @ingram “staff” is the cleaners indeed where I’m at.

And as a rule of thumb they’re pretty similar to us lot what keeps the servers running in that we’re invisible unless we fuck up or otherwise don’t do our job.