Title Inflation, Grade Inflation, What's Next?
Patricia Kitchen highlights a recent review of job listings that she conducted and noted the startling number of "Chiefs." Seems that we are experiencing a bit of title inflation here. It used to be that there was one Chief, the CEO. Now everyone has to be a president or a chief. Seems that vice president just won't do. According to some of the comments in the Newsday article she authored, the the title of Chief signifies either that the position is important or that the buck stops with the chief - i.e. more accountability.
This all seems ridiculously absurd to me. Kind of reminds me of one of my corporate jobs when one of my fellow "VP's" was complaining that his office did not have the same number of ceiling tiles as a colleague. I once had a job interview at a relatively small employer where everyone who ran a department was called a President.
In academia, we complain about grade inflation, that all of the students want an "A" and that we are diminishing the quality of education. Aren't we doing the same here? Remember the saying about Vice Presidents in banks? Why do we need fancy titles to make us accountable? Isn't it really just to stroke our egos?
I just can't wait until Patricia comes up with the list of Assistant Chiefs, the Associate Chiefs, oh, and then there will be the Senior Chiefs!