Butt Sniffing

Titles and more clues

When two dogs meet, they sniff butts.

When two dogs greet each other by sniffing their rear ends, they are gathering vital information. Dogs have anal glands located inside the rectum that secrete pheromones carrying details about sex, health, diet, and even emotional state. This behavior is a normal, instinctive form of canine communication. — American Kennel Club

Sure would be handy if you could know at a glance (or a sniff) a person’s health and emotional state. Also, their expertise, capabilities, connections.

Photo by SHEYLA STUDIO on Unsplash

Alas, you can’t. Still there are clues, and we immediately start making assumptions based on appearance, facial expression, dress, setting. The minute someone opens their mouth, we add to our profile based on vocabulary, accent, eye contact.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Like a lot of kids, my first taste of hierarchy was Boy Scouts. I got as far as Tenderfoot, went camping, earned some badges and that was enough. The pecking order was clear and I wasn’t interested in becoming an Eagle Scout.

Sometimes it’s easy to tell where someone sits in the food chain. If you’re into martial arts, belt color says a lot. If you’re in the ER, you’re looking around for a Doctor. If you’re a Karen, you want to talk to the Manager.

Business mucks it up. While early titles are self explanatory — I started out as a doorman, waiter, programmer — it quickly gets weird.

While a butt sniff don’t lie, titles become increasingly arbitrary. Tech hierarchy includes titles like Engineer, Dev, Program Manager, but how about Customer Success Manager? Every software company has an army of CSMs and I won’t bother telling you what they do because it’s boring¹ and intentional word salad.

Then there are stupid titles like Chief Troublemaker, Innovation Sherpa, Growth Hacker, VP of Getting Things Done. Embarrassing.

LinkedIn piles on with inflationary titles like Founder, Angel Investor, VP, CEO (of a 2 person startup). Safe to say any title on LinkedIn is 10x from reality.

So, run your own sniff tests. Push for credibility. Is someone worth your time or your business? Can they do the job? When you ask your first question, you’ll get a pat answer. But when you ask the second, you’ll start to see what’s real, then ask a third. Keep drilling down, peel the onion, double click, be Socrates.

What’s the most ridiculous or disingenuous title you’ve ever seen (or had)?

1. Their one job is getting you to renew your software licenses.