Wanted: Job Title Jockey (good hours)

Job titles: we’re not being imaginative enough. My friends, Something Must Be Done. We owe it to that bundle of unused business cards crunching in your pocket to develop their potential. It’s not enough to be a ‘Client Manager’ any more; our own personal brands demand more than merely ‘Services Operative’, or even the slyly deceptive ‘Publishing Executive.’

No, what we need to see on business cards is: ‘Saviour of the Planet (Mon-Weds only)’. Put aside ‘Business Manager’, let’s see ‘Product Panjandrum’. Forget ‘Internal Marketing Manager’, let’s have ‘Mission Statement Messiah’.

Failing that, perhaps we could go the opposite way and have refreshingly frank job titles instead. ‘Panic Merchant.’ ‘Consummate Politician’. ‘Director of Own Personal Ego.’ For the colleague on whom good ideas tend to snag, and never progress: ‘Ian Briggs, Corporate Barbed Wire Fence.’ For the fussy colleague who prefers detail over activity: ‘Rose Humphries, Niggle Tsar'. And for the colleague quick to snuggle up to senior managers when they heave into view: ‘Anthony Williams, Apple Polisher.'

Quark: you’re fired.