Reply With QuoteAmerican owned companies by any chance?
a friend of mine is a VP and he is just a senior DBA in an american software company. I find it a little confusing myself
President should be the top guy - so what the point of an army of middle managers all with the title 'Vice President'?
And then there's 'Senior Vice President'. What does that mean?
American owned companies by any chance?
a friend of mine is a VP and he is just a senior DBA in an american software company. I find it a little confusing myself
There are only a few companies where the VP title actually carries any weight.
The other over used and watered down title is "Director of Something." In the UK, director is not a job title you should want as it carries the responsibilities of a real director on the Board.
The Vice-Presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss."
John Nance Garner IV (32nd VP of the USA).
Best wishes,
Bob
Our brass levels include...
VP
SVP
GVP
EVP
2 tiers of Directors and at least 2 tiers of managers.
As best i can tell, the mass proliferation and erosion of title has everything to do with making sure the people beneath you do not share your grade. And nothing to do with lateral equivalency.
Of course even "Director" is eroded, every warm, four-limbed, corpse in Marketing seems to have a title of "[insert brand, sub brand or specifically packaged product] Director" - sometimes it might include some geographic responsibility and then the clamouring for "global cardboard packaged non customised with an alton towers promotion label fast moving consumer goods Director" status gets ugly.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
We have Presidents, Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents, Assistant Vice Presidents, Senior Staff Vice Presidents, Staff Vice Presidents ...
Your guess is as good as mine what the hierarchy actually is.
Yes been subjected to this, my old boss was global operations president (a yank) when he recruited me he global operations director, never put it on my cards. When the president of the company came over, we went to a meeting and he asked me why no title on my cards and I explained my title would be GOD as the abbreviation and everyone should know who GOD is. He never really got the joke. But the reality is I am a sales bloke
I've studiously avoided formal job titles all my career as I feel it pigeonholes people and prejudices people you interact with.
That said, I have depending on mood and who i am talking to had titles that abbreviate to CIA and NSA amongst others. It's only for my own amusement really, but can be satisfying when faced with some twerp with an overblown job title.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
Some if the sites in Germany I visit have a good one, the American corporate HQ has designated the head of the site as the Business Unit Manager, it was fun to explain that one to them
"Welcome to the site, I'm the B,U,M (insert name )
Me " I'm sorry your the what?"
First time was a bit like Monty python lol
My company have a division in India. As I understand it, perceived status is very important to Indian culture, so every year, along with their 'pay rise' the workers out there get a slightly improved job title. There is a bewildering array of job titles.
We have also adopted the full range of variations on a VP theme, as the investment banks are our customers, and it helps them understand who they're talking to, apparently.
Bob, you hit the nail on the head with digging up that quote !Originally Posted by rfrazier
Basically the same thing with me. I am in middle management in a large German company and I do not have a job title on my visiting cards. Just my name, my department, and contact details. Does the job quite well.
I was an EMEA-level director in my last company and it was a pain in the backside... I hate management roles, always have.
Stooo makes a really good point and I too have avoided job titles on cards as I'm pretty flexible in what I do, day to day. That said, I have just been awarded the mantle of "Enterprise Master" which is the highest level of technical qualification in my company, and I'm able to use the title on a business card. Implicit in that rank is the old name for it - Blade Master. I'm so tempted to have that put on a card, I really am.
true, but on the other hand he was 'only a heartbeat away from presidency'... Off course this phrase only works for this job. Not for the bucket load of VPs... swarming the open office spaces in the city.
Menno
Most of then didn't care for the job....
“The Vice Presidency is the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived"?
John Adams (1st Vice President of the United States)
"I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead."
Daniel Webster, on not accepting the Vice Presidency in 1858.
“This man is certainly deranged.”
Attorney General James Speed’s remarks during Andrew Johnson’s Vice Presidential acceptance address in 1865.
"I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than Vice President."
Theodore Roosevelt (25th Vice President of the United States)
"Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected Vice President of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again"? Thomas Marshall (28th Vice President of the United States)
Calvin Coolidge enjoyed his time as Vice President. He claimed that the job never interfered with his mandatory eleven hours of sleep a day. (29th Vice President of the United States)
"This is a hell of a job. I can only do two things: one is to sit up here and listen to you birds (the Senate) talk....The other is to look at newspapers every morning to see how the President's health is."
Charles Dawes (30th Vice President of the United States)
"Look at all the Vice Presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow's fifth teat."
Harry S. Truman (34th Vice President of the United States)
"Vice president -- it has such a nice ring to it!"
Geraldine Ferraro (1984, thank God she didn't get the job...).
Last edited by lysanderxiii; 19th June 2013 at 22:46.
I am Vice President in our house...and don't get any vice! Lol....wife is president and rules...! Sounds like a great title but its all dependant on the cash rolling in!
Director here. Our company structure goes President & CEO < C-Level officers < Division VPs < Directors < Managers < Supervisors and everyone else. We don't have the inter-directorial/presidential levels of Senior and Executive. Here the VPs and directors aren't just a bunch of middle-managers; the VP senior to me has direct accountability for around 1,000 people in total worldwide and a budget of about $200m/year, others have even more. This structure works well for us as there are clear lines of authority/reporting and separation of responsibilities per division and unit.
I have worked in places where they hand out Director titles seemingly for fun; for instance I was briefly a director with one single direct report and he wasn't even a manager. It was pointless.
I agree that it's bollocks in some companies, but definitely not all.
Last edited by colin; 20th June 2013 at 00:23.
Hi Colin,
I agree with you 100%. Unless your a companies house direct (which I am of only a £4.4m turnover business) then the title is used too cheaply in my opinion. The title 'director' I think is a over egged title to open up more doors from a sales perspective, but that may be just in my vertical sector - Financial Services?
Kind regards
Chris
I worked for a company in Amsterdam for about a year until they went bust, the plethora of upper managers with silly titles couldn't make up for their total lack of business acumen, they went everywhere by business class and pissed the company funds in 5 star hotels,
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Depends on the country in which the company is headquartered, the industry in which it operates, and its size (hence, the need for more levels of management). In the banking industry for example, it's standard practice to appoint LEGIONS of vice presidents, so that essentially any customer can easily deal with an "officer of the bank."
Very good quotes in this thread!
At the company I work for, a good 90% of the employees are managers of something. A "title" today is like a deutsche mark in the '20s...
We have a large-ish office in India and I note that all of the middle-ranking admin and managerial staff all have VP in their job-title as it appears on LinkedIn. I don't know whether this has been squared with our office out there so I must mention it to the head of the office out there next time I see him (we're quite friendly, particularly as I managed to get him an extra 10% off a Datejust thanks to the help received on this forum - you know who you are!).
Personally I prefer the opposite approach; my job title is Senior Project Manager and I refuse to use the senior bit as it sounds too pompous and unnecessary.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
I have a good title: Delmé-Radcliffe Lecturer in Philosophy at Christ Church. No tenure, however. What my students call me varies given the context, but it is usually "Bob". Sometimes "Dr Bob". Occasionally, post Harry Potter, "Professor", although I am not a Professor. I say that I teach philosophy. :)
Best wishes,
Bob
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