Title envy

By Mir
May 5, 2005
Category Job? Huh?

I haven’t shared my job description, here, and I know that some of you probably wonder why. Oh, sure; I say it’s for anonymity and not mixing work and blog and blah blah blah blah. But that’s not the whole story.

The truth is… *deep breath* I feel a little inadequate. I WANT to be cool. So much.

But there are so many cooler people out there. I can’t measure up! I… I… I suffer from title jealousy. Please don’t think less of me. I’m struggling with my problem, and trying to overcome it.

Today I found myself working with a list of industry colleagues. What I was doing with the list (and the fact that I spent all damn day doing it, which is another story entirely) is not important right now. What IS important is that amongst the typical, expected information, I discovered a bevy of people with cooler titles than mine.

I sent every one of them Nastygrams.

Well, no. But I did giggle, a little.

“Edge Developer”
Don’t be a sheep, man. Be your own dog. Why develop the same thing as everyone else, when you can be developing stuff ON THE EDGE. Or, you know, THE ACTUAL EDGE, itself! I wonder if this is a dangerous position. I’ll bet they get lots of splinters.

“lead program manager”
At a company that doesn’t believe in capital letters. I can dig it. Rage against the machine, you rebels!

“Softwaredesignengineer”
Okay, I wasn’t really jealous of this guy. I don’t know if I could work in an environment where there’s such a critical shortage of spaces.

“Mr.”
It’s simple. It’s strong. It’s mysterious. Smoooooooth. You can see how it captivates.

“Concerned Citizen”
See, now, you have to admire someone who really CARES, like that. And if they’re getting PAID for it, good for them!

“Technical Evangelist”
“Lo, Bill came down from the mountaintop. And he saw that there were 64 bits, and the 64 bits, they were VERY GOOD!”

“Grand Poo-bah”
This would be worth it for the hat alone, don’t you think?

… and my personal favorite…

“Enginerd”
A tear sprang to my eye. This is a man in touch with the deepest recesses of his very soul. How brave.

10 Comments

  1. Amanda B.

    Uh, yeah so you only have like a Phd. from Harvard in Microrobotics or something, two beautiful kids, a certain someone, and a killer bod?

    Dude whatever. You ARE cool.

  2. dave

    That is one smart kid, that Amanda B. Listen to her.
    (Wait, isn’t this the same comment I posted yesterday?)
    When someone asks what I do, I say “I’m a geek.” I may have to steal “enginerd” though. That rocks.

  3. savtadotty

    RW once had a title I admired: Help Goddess. But she quit anyhow.

  4. Leila

    Your dad and I are not used to laughing so hard in the early morning, and we still don’t know what you actually do! Keep the blogs coming. They have a way of jump starting our day.

    L & d

  5. Katie

    I bet someone spilled coffee on the space bar at Softwaredesignerngineer’s company.

  6. Dawnie

    Man, now I have major title envy, too. I want to be a Technical Evangilist! Or an Enginerd! Those are way cooler than my boring “Analyst” title.

    Clearly I am working for the wrong company.

  7. La Pix

    Funny you should say that – my business cards say Portal Guru. And I didn’t even choose that!

    I have had more snarky-ass comments about it too. I would prefer the Business Analyst which is on my employee records.

    Killer bod, eh? I don’t think we can tell that from the picture of your eyeballs and glasses. I wonder if you’ve ever been labeled the hottest, umm, nerd in IT?

    Have a great weekend-not-spent-facing-toilet!

  8. Shiz

    Ooooh, enginerd is coool.

    Apple hires “Mac Evangelists”, I hear.

  9. Karen

    Please tell me you made this up. PLEASE.

  10. Carol

    What the hell? How come I’m not blessed enough to come across ONE title like that, much less a whole list that occupies my entire day?! I’m jealous!!! I have to dig for blog material relating to my coworkers. DIG, I say, DIG! And there you have it right at your fingertips. As if!

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