Illustration : Uday Deb

HR departments sometimes work in devious ways. Your company is going through a crisis and everyone knows it. In line with your expectations, you get a paltry hike. But along with the increment letter comes a note from the HR head or even the CEO.

It goes something like this: “You are aware that we’ve been passing through tough times. We are unable to give you the increment you deserve. But, as a measure of our regard for your valuable service, we are promoting you to ____. You will understand that we will only be able to give the additional salary and the perquisites that this post warrants at a later date.”

“Wow,” you say. “This is a company that cares.” Think twice. This could be a strategy evolved in the corner office with nothing caring about it. A crisis encourages job hopping. This is the time to mount defences. A sham promotion is a cheap way to do it.

There could be another fallout beneficial to the company. Cut some perks now and keep your fingers crossed. The chances are that you can get away with restoring only part of them when the situation improves. If this keeps happening, designations lose their meaning.

Job titles today have evolved into an efficient weapon in the HR manager’s armoury. On the one hand, you have organisations like Citigroup where everyone starts as a vice-president. It gives you the extra edge when negotiating with a manager in some other organisation. “This is also a feature in IT companies,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant Shashi Rao.

Another facet of the world of job titles is the transformations that have happened because of the need to be politically correct. In the first phase, they were merely addressing the entry of women in the workplace; so chairman became chairperson.

Then came the crusade to give respectability to some jobs. Thus, secretary became the head of verbal communications and the cleaner the environment improvement technician. This continues (see below). The dotcom boom, with a younger crowd at the helm, produced its share of zany job titles.

There was the keeper of the eternal flame, the fun officer and the chief evangelist. Unfortunately, some traditional companies adopted some of these titles.

“How do people react to a chief mentor,” asks Rao. “They hide a smile. They then decide this is a person who thinks too much of himself. His colleagues have encouraged him to take up the title because they want him to ride off into the sunset as a figure of ridicule.”

There are some titles that could do with changes. Angelique H. Caffrey, AOL Careers columnist, has a list of the weirdest titles. It includes smutters (persons who tend grain machines that remove foreign matter, such as dirt and smut from grain prior to milling), lamina searchers (they remove the stems and foreign materials from tobacco), mother testers (who inspect metal phonograph record “mothers” for surface defects) and hookers (who coordinate the activities of workers who load and haul logs in cable yarding systems).

If you are in need of a title, check out BullshitJobs.com. The Bullshit Job Title Generator will give you a wide variety. How about forward group architect? That could be an army engineer or a builder of malls at Pantaloons. Or internal infrastructure assistant? That could be the sewage worker holding the tools while his boss digs at the clogged pipes. Or the standby surgeon during a heart operation. Take your pick.

Top 20 crazy titles

Vision Clearance Engineer — Window cleaner

Education Centre Nourishment Production Assistant — Dinner lady

Waste Removal Engineer — Binman

Domestic Engineer — Housewife

lKnowledge Navigator — Teacher

Flueologist — Chimney sweep

Stock Replenishment Adviser — Supermarket shelf stacker

lHead of Verbal Communications — Receptionist/secretary

Petroleum Transfer Engineer — Petrol station worker

Foot Health Gain Facilitator — Chiropodist

Coin Facilitation Engineer — Toll booth collector

Cash Relation Officer — Banker

Environment Improvement Technician — Cleaner

Revenue Protection Officer — Transport ticket inspector

Technical Horticultural Maintenance Officer — Gardener

Wastewater Treatment Officer — Sewage worker

Crockery Cleansing Operative — Washer-up

Space Consultant — Estate agent

Media Distribution Officer — paperboy

Dispatch Services Facilitator — postroom worker

Source: A poll conducted by www.job2view.com of 4,000 jobseekers