Derogatory terms for skilled jobs

[Flick of the Elbow]

You are probably a 'Service Manager', 'Business Analyst', 'Project Manager' or 'Head of Department'. People in these roles often claim to 'be in IT'.

I've been in IT for 30 years too and have never heard of 'code monkey'. I would call them 'techies'.

 

[Mo1959]

My old job of prison officer - screw. Not the most pleasant.

 

[Dan B]

I've been in IT for 30 years too and have never heard of 'code monkey'. I would call them 'techies'.

I've been in IT for only slightly over 20 years and I have (although I've never been called one. I did once have a conversation with a project manager in which he described the entire programming profession as "just pushing buttons").

I find that "resource" is a universal derogatory term for pretty much any job, role, trade, profession, call it what you will

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

You are probably a 'Service Manager', 'Business Analyst', 'Project Manager' or 'Head of Department'. People in these roles often claim to 'be in IT'.

No. I work for a living.

Started out writing educational software for Doncaster Council Microelectronics Project.
Then Programmer & Senior Analyst/Programmer - Developing bespoke planning systems to achieve BS5750/ISO9000 & COSHH for Shell, ICI, Pilkingtons Glass, DeBeers Industrial Diamonds Division and UHPU Johannesburg & Ireland using FOCUS on PC, VAX/VMS, Unix & IBM Mainframe.
Now IT Manager, at my second company, and I do the lot from the ground up. Installed every wire, built and installed the servers etc, services, any software I didn't write I'm modifying on a daily basis. At the first place they couldn't afford Sage, so I wrote the accounts software in Borland Delphi.

 

[Tenacious Sloth]

We had nicknames for the various aircraft engineering trades within the RAF:

Propulsion Systems: Sumpies or Sooties
Airframe Systems: Riggers
Armament Systems: Plumbers
Avionic Systems: Fairies
Aircraft Electrician: Dog F**kers (don't ask)

Graham

 

[steveindenmark]

Actually the term "Air Stewardess" has become an outdated and arguably derogatory term too. It stems from those days when cabin crew generally were female, and certainly geared wholly to serving. (Stewarding).
It's way more weighted to safety duties now and done by both sexes in fairly even numbers of course. Cabin Crew is the more appropriate title.

On others, I've always found the term "Squaddie" when referring to service men and women generally does carry a certain derogatory feel to it.

As an ex 12 year "Squaddie" I have never known other squaddies have a problem with it.

But on the other hand I am an ex policeman and so squaddie is like a term of endearment. As an ex police officer, my opinion always was that if you cannot put up with people calling you, all your family. But especially your wife and your mother, all kinds of things. You should never have joined the job.

 

[smutchin]

There's the opposite end of the scale as well, which is where the various "architects" and "solutions providers" seem to come in. Taking a job that has a workable title and aggrandising it.

A friend of mine when asked to list his mother's profession on a form put 'domestic engineer', which I rather like.

I'm what is commonly known as a 'hack' - I churn out copy to order. It's not a complimentary term but it's a fair description of what I do. I wanted to be a writer for a living since I was a small child, but the reality doesn't quite live up to the dreams of my youth.

 

[smutchin]

As an ex police officer

Pig!

 

[steveindenmark]

Pig!

You Bxxxard

 

[smutchin]

Rock Ape. RAF Reg't

I don't think I'd call that one derogatory, given the story behind it. When I was in the air cadets, there was a chap a few years older than me who went into the Regiment and he wore the nickname as a badge of pride.

Given the current state of relations with Spain, they may well be called on to live up to it soon.

 

[vickster]

No. I work for a living.

Started out writing educational software for Doncaster Council Microelectronics Project.
Then Programmer & Senior Analyst/Programmer - Developing bespoke planning systems to achieve BS5750/ISO9000 & COSHH for Shell, ICI, Pilkingtons Glass, DeBeers Industrial Diamonds Division and UHPU Johannesburg & Ireland using FOCUS on PC, VAX/VMS, Unix & IBM Mainframe.
Now IT Manager, at my second company, and I do the lot from the ground up. Installed every wire, built and installed the servers etc, services, any software I didn't write I'm modifying on a daily basis. At the first place they couldn't afford Sage, so I wrote the accounts software in Borland Delphi.

Geek

 

[Tin Pot]

No. I work for a living.

Started out writing educational software for Doncaster Council Microelectronics Project.
Then Programmer & Senior Analyst/Programmer - Developing bespoke planning systems to achieve BS5750/ISO9000 & COSHH for Shell, ICI, Pilkingtons Glass, DeBeers Industrial Diamonds Division and UHPU Johannesburg & Ireland using FOCUS on PC, VAX/VMS, Unix & IBM Mainframe.
Now IT Manager, at my second company, and I do the lot from the ground up. Installed every wire, built and installed the servers etc, services, any software I didn't write I'm modifying on a daily basis. At the first place they couldn't afford Sage, so I wrote the accounts software in Borland Delphi.

I've been in IT for 30 years too and have never heard of 'code monkey'. I would call them 'techies'.

Jeez! You'll be telling me you've never read Slashdot next!

Here's another tester. Complete the following series:

1. Collect underpants
2. ???

What is 3. ?

 

[smutchin]

You Bxxxard

Fascist!

 

[CanucksTraveller]

As an ex 12 year "Squaddie" I have never known other squaddies have a problem with it.

But on the other hand I am an ex policeman and so squaddie is like a term of endearment. As an ex police officer, my opinion always was that if you cannot put up with people calling you, all your family. But especially your wife and your mother, all kinds of things. You should never have joined the job.

Quite a few people haven't really read my line properly on this one... I specifically said the use of the word "Squaddie" when referring to service men and women generally.
I don't think there's anything necessarily derogatory about the term squaddie when it's used to refer to certain categories of army personnel. Used for RAF, RN, RM etc however, it's lazy and IMO a little derogatory in that to the user, all service people are the same thing.

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

Geek

Definitely!