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'Ninja' Replacing 'Guru' as Sad, Ego-Boosting Title of the Moment

by Matthew Zuras on April 7, 2010 at 01:35 PM

Remember when, not too long ago, "guru" was one of those corporate words du jour? We had "Web gurus" and "customer service gurus" and inspiration-gurus-at-large. These self-styled titles were hot like UGGs, and fell out of vogue almost as quickly. [Ed. Note: Yes. Out of vogue. Dead. Kaput.] Well, now people have taken to "ninja" as the cool new nom de whatever, and it's a broad enough trend that the Wall Street Journal has published an article profiling a few of these millennial warriors.

And they're not just MMORPG-playing tech nerds. From furniture movers to personal security guards, it would appear that every facet of the professional world has at least a ninja or two within it. Although these folks are not clad in black or wielding throwing stars, the term is supposedly a metaphor for how they execute projects, and, ultimately, contribute to the bottom line.

People often invent titles, especially in the media industry, to make themselves feel better about the tedium of their jobs and frequently mediocre salaries. (We are speaking from collective experience, here.) But there is, allegedly, a lot of subtext in your job title. Even the baristas slinging espresso for an hourly wage at Starbucks are called "partners" so that they see themselves as active members of the company, instead of cogs in a caffeinated wheel. Yet "ninja" may be the saddest of them all, reducing people to a pitiable level of Sartrean bad faith so that they can slough through the recession with some kind of ego intact.

Co-opting the term has, unsurprisingly, unnerved some Japanese. Jinichi Kawakami, known as one of Japan's last living ninjas, tells the Journal, "As a Japanese person, I feel a bit of discomfort about it." And, readers, so do we. For any ninjas out there reading this post, please let us know in the comments: why? We don't see an end to this real-life role-playing. What's next, social networking dictators? Project managing popes? Shut it down, please. [From: WSJ]

Tags: employment, geek, guru, JobTitles, language, ninja, recession, stupid, top, work

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