Enjoying your job of work is something I think we should all aspire to. If you enjoy what you do for a living then your miserable home-life is of less consequence. Also, you’ll inevitably become better at it, and your days won’t drag like the night-of-a-thousand-years, like they tend to do in my role from time to time. From an employers perspective, the more satisfaction you get from your role, the harder you work. Which is a good thing for them.

Which is why many employers are coming up with innumerable ingenious ideas for making your working surroundings more pleasant, whilst trying to create a true sense of pride in what you do. Unfortunately, this is becoming more ridiculous by the day. The latest trend seems to be giving people job titles that bear no relation the job they do, and makes them seem more important than they actually are.

I saw a lady the other day with the title “Wrap Consultant” on her name badge. Any idea what she was doing at the time? No? She was giving out free sandwich samples at Tesco’s. In doing so, she’s managed to achieve something I’d previously thought of as impossible, in that she made me think even less of consultants.

The trains are a haven for this sort of thing. I’ve heard announcements asking for a “Refuse Operative please report to the buffet car”. It’s a cleaner. We all know it’s a cleaner. Do you think the Refuse Operative thinks they are anything other than a cleaner? Or maybe they applied for the role of Refuse Operative, and are genuinely surprised at the amount of cleaning that they have to do? Perhaps at appraisal time they’ll have the courage to ask for the opportunity to operate more refuse, and do a little less cleaning.

Look, we need cleaners, otherwise stuff would be constantly dirty, so don’t think I’m picking on the Refuse Operatives. Trains also have Revenue Protection Officers. I can only assume these roles are fulfilled by people who failed the medical for the Police or Army. Or they just wanted to avoid having the word Private in their title.

Drop the word Revenue and we could be talking about a bodyguard, or some sort of MI6 secret agent. Again, are there people applying for this role who expected to be a key team member in the hunt for Osama, and are they dismayed to find out they’re checking tickets on the Bristol to London Intercity?

The daddy of all roles was recently revealed where I work. The Product Development team have recently undergone a sort of re-branding exercise, and as a result have had their name changed to…. Imagineering! I kid ye not! It’s not even a real word! There are business cards with the job title of Lead Imagineer in existence. I have seen them with my own eyes!

I long for the days when people were Sandwich Ladies, Cleaners, Ticket Collectors and Teccie Nerds.

Do you have a ridiculous job title? If not, what would it be if you could make one up for yourself?

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