A sweetly situated bookstore and its bookseller in France lead Richard Charkin to speculate on job titles in publishing.

By Richard Charkin | @RCharkin

Minding the Shop

Meet Phillippe Jean-Préau. He’s minding the shop in Puycelsi, the nearest village to Mensch Publishing’s EU summer headquarters in southern France.

The shop, La Bouquinerie, is part of a nonprofit cooperative, Pages en Partage, or Shared Pages, dedicated to the love of books and reading. I was sad when its charming predecessor, Temps de Lire, transmuted into a pottery shop, but Gallic bibliophilia triumphed and we have an even more charming bookshop.

And this shop’s window has one of the best views anywhere.

Note the shelves and the chessboard. Customers are encouraged to linger, and the last thing Phillippe expects is to sell a book. There are few if any new books at La Bouquinerie, nothing in English nor any language apart from French—and the occasional Languedoc edition. It’s a joy.

I asked a slightly surprised Phillippe how he described his role. Was he bookshop manager, assistant, proprietor, founder, managing director? What was his job title?

The Gallic shrug said it all: “I open the shop some days and then shut it. I sit at the desk by the door to deter thieves. I check the stock from time to time although there’s little demand for the books. I take money very occasionally and deposit it in the bank. I arrange to pay the rent. I check for woodworm and damp and fix it when necessary.

“You tell me what my job title should be.”

Fair point. I asked some friends about their job titles.

• A stellar one from the National Health Service: infant feeding and baby-friendly initiative accreditation lead working across maternity, neonatal, and health visiting.
• And from the help desk of a large UK publishing company: second line IT support engineer and end-user computing specialist.
• And a friend of mine working for a famous broadcasting enterprise: commissioning editor, daytime and early evening peak.

Job Title Inflation

This got me thinking. Job titles matter for many people.

“Do these job titles really help an outsider—or even an insider—work out who does what?”Richard Charkin

Should a job be described as editor, commissioning editor, senior commissioning editor, editorial director, publishing director, publisher, editor-in-chief, editor-at-large?

What does any of it really mean? Why does it matter? I suppose the title signifies the importance of the job and the individual, although it’s not nearly as helpful in this regard as knowing the salary. Frequently job titles are inflated by management to avoid paying more to an individual. I wonder what the exchange rate between salary and job title might be. This has led to a degree of hyperinflation.

And then there’s the simply misleading title to burnish an employee’s self-regard. What does a senior business development manager for a “prestigious global education organization” do? The answer is to “maximize sales.” Or an ad for “head of marketing” reporting to “marketing director.” Who calls the shots?

Do these job titles really help an outsider—or even an insider—work out who does what? And yet it is arguably necessary to have something below one’s name on a business card or on an email.

Three proposals each with merits and demerits:

• The person’s name and the company employing them. Every employee should have the company’s interests at heart. They can always explain and redirect anyone if they’re not the right person to answer a query.
• The previous year’s remuneration in dollars. This would make it crystal clear how important or otherwise the person is.
• Leave it entirely to the individual to create his or her own job title. If an assistant editor decides to be called a managing director, so be it. That employee might even begin to behave like a managing director—which would be a plus—or teased by colleagues for self-aggrandizement. And this system would allow people to create new job titles such as “nicest person in publishing” or “toughest negotiator ever” or simply “not a bot.”

While I have your attention—I hope—one more thing: When did the word across first appear in job descriptions? The number of jobs with phrases such as “sales director working across multiple imprints” is growing almost as fast as job title inflation. Replace across with on and all would be well. What would Phillippe make of this?

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