Job Titles Are Stupid

I think it's ridiculous that people find job titles impressive. I have met a lot of people with the same job titles that have had wildly different jobs. I have met people with remarkably different titles that all do the same work.

Job titles don't tell you how high up the latter you are, how much responsibility you have, what your specific duties are. Honestly, it doesn't actually say much of anything.

And yet, we have these preconceived notions of what they mean. Directors tell everybody what to do. Managers tell the peons what to do. Any position called "associate" or "assistant" is thankless grunt work, but they mean you're approaching the top when used as adjectives (such as Associate Vice President).

Giving a character a job title is a quick and cheap way to give them a particular status. If you story actually involves their job in any significant way (as opposed to showing it as generic office work), then what's really going to matter is what your character does. The one good thing about the meaninglessness of job titles is that you can have a character do whatever you want at work and almost any job title can cover it.