What job title holds the biggest wow factor

[pancakeontoast]

Just for sat night chat, what job do you think holds the biggest kudos? I think probably a medical consultant or barrister... what do you think...

@PinkyDinkyDoodle there was a guy on my grad scheme who was a professional poker player. His mum had told him he had to get a proper job and he was doing the minimum he could to not get sacked while staying up all night playing poker which was making him much more money than his actual job . We were away on a residential and everyone was in awe until he came to breakfast the next day with a face like thunder. He had lost £50k of something ridiculous the night before.

Interested by barrister - am a solicitor and so know many barristers and wouldn’t say they are very impressive. Although I get that they swoop in after the solicitor has done all the hard work of actually preparing the case and present it so wonderfully and theatrically

Footballer or other sportsperson
anything unusual or bizarre
probably porn stars

I don’t know why, but there was a job on LinkedIn for ‘Head of Tax at Next’ that I’m still impressed by.

Also, Captain (Of Cruise Ship as in Captain Kate, or Pilot Captain)

Film Director
Barrister
Surgeon
Pilot

I once worked with a countess. In terms of our work that was not her job title, but it was her "official title" and she was lovely. I enjoyed her stories about life at the House of Lords and the rules on pecking order (as the wife of one of the few remaining hereditary peers, she was quite high up).

HM The King
Head of MI5, MI6, head of GCHQ

Chief Actuary

Jobs (paid or volunteer) in scary frontline scenarios, like aid workers, MSF medics, war correspondents etc impress me, they're interesting, selfless, brave. Also concert pianist, so much wow for that talent.

The geophysics chat 😅 I teach some planetary geophysics and it is a really fascinating subject, geophysicist does have a wow factor for me, the ones I know are all very intelligent.

Head of either Mi5,Sis, OR Gchq

Lol. This is my actual job title. Not that impressive.

@MillieVonPinkle see I’ve never met a CEO but two of my closest friends are commercial pilots - can we trade? 😂

or head of a military dept that is in charge of secret business for our space forces etc

Paleontologist
Astrophysicist, or anyone involved in getting rockets etc to fly and go to the right place

I once met a man who was Rhino manager at the local safari park and was ridiculously impressed.

I have one of these job titles (not Sea Lord 🤣🤣🤣), and can confirm that people are generally wowed by it.

I usually give the generic field if asked, as outside work, I really don't want to be getting into in depth discussions with people about it.

Witnessed a bomb disposal man on a speakerphone once - he was putting on a wetsuit at the time - his response to "if you get this one dealt with quickly, there's another you can do on the way back" was hilarious.
The WW1 mine took a couple of detonations and the second attempt rattled windows over a mile away.

I know several barristers. All perfectly pleasant to chat to but have massive egos and like the sound of their own voices.

I’d be impressed by someone who works for NASA or MI5.

@Bunnycat101 a friend of mine plays semi-professionally. I don’t think he’s ever lost £50k in one night, though!

Name change for obvious reasons … I am pretty pleased with my job title and it makes 5 year old girls jealous …

Head of Unicorns 🦄

(unfortunately it’s the boring venture capital kind, not the sparkly rainbow kind)

other good job titles (not mine)

Test Pilot
Astronaut
Head of Coffee

I would say I’m more impressed by the person rather than their title. You could have two people with the very same title, but one could be less than impressive and the other could be superb.

You don’t think so? Why not?

Carers who work in hospices, palliative care, or just in people's homes when they are dying. Imagine having the capacity to give care in the most dire of circumstances every day, as routine. I admit in the past I wouldn't have said 'carer' as my wow title, now I'm wowed by anyone working in palliative care, I also genuinely find their jobs interesting!

Forensic pathologist/anthropologist like Sue Black, her books were fascinating, such an interesting although again highly distressing job, identifying bits of people who are dead and not whole for all types of usually horrible reasons.

Anything starry, like TV people. I've never worked with them so it still has the sparkle for me, even though those who I know work in it say most people are not all that!

Intelligence services- anything where you have to not blather on your entire working life has the wow factor for me, because I couldn't do it. Even more wow is spies who are double-agents. The nerves of it!

Neurosurgeons- the books of Henry Marsh are amazing at showing how skilled this is but also how mistakes are part of the job, in a truly awful way. He's a wonderful man and used to do brain surgery with B and Q drills in the Ukraine in his holidays. That's a 'wow' person doing a 'wow' job.

Definitely a neurosurgeon. I have a brain tumour and last year had a 14 hour surgery to remove most of it. I've since learnt more than I'd ever wish to know about neurosurgery (though obviously barely know anything really!) and the level of skill required to operate in the brain is just insane. The complexity and risk of operating in such an area is insane and I almost think neurosurgeons must be superhuman to be able to perform such high-risk and complex operations.

Satanist.