Calling yourself a CEO AIBU?

[Namechange144]

Sorry I’ve name changed for this.

Went to a new local cafe yesterday with a friend I’d not seen since before Covid. She quit her corporate job at the start of lockdown and started a gym - think group classes and some personal training sessions. Not a gym you’d go to independently exercise.

We got speaking to the cafe owner about the cafe and other things and he asked us what we both did, friend said ‘I’m a CEO’, I looked slightly surprised and said ‘a CEO?’ in what I guess was a slightly questioning tone. She then responded ‘Yes it’s a chief executive officer’ , I obviously knew what it stood for but I didn’t say anything else and the convo moved on.

AIBU to think you shouldn’t really refer to yourself as a CEO unless you are one in the traditional sense? Am I behind the times here, can you be a CEO of exercise classes? Surely you’d just say I’m a PT and have my own gym.
Friend is really nice so I feel like a bit of a bitch but I can’t help but think it’s a bit of a weird thing to say and wondered if it was just me that found this a bit odd.

It's a meaningless expression.

Funny one I had was someone who has in their email signature: "CEO of X" X being a group that runs 2 Pilate classes a week. So 2 hours a week. They expect to be treated like senior management of a huge corporation on that. Then something happened at one of their classes and legal action (for negligence, and they're lucky it wasn't worse) was threatened. Their response was to deny the group was anything to do with them. 🤣🤣🤣

I'm a CFO but always just tell friends I'm an accountant.

In the right context (ie work) you need to use titles to ensure counterparts know who they are dealing with, but out of context it is naff imho

I put my title as 'Dr' when I was filling in my details on La Redoute, purely because I can't believe that someone's title is a required field for an address when they're buying some furniture! I choose a different one each time with companies I only buy one or two things from when I can't leave the field blank.

I'm self employed, my business is just me. I'm now going to say I'm a CEO when asked!

Working bloody hard for them still doesn't make them a doctor. Telling someone you're a doctor when you know full well that you are giving them the impression that you are a medical doctor, is just as cringy as calling yourself a CEO when you are not.

If you are registered as self employed you are considered to be a business owner regardless of the size of your business and/or if you are a sole trader or employ others. If you then sell 2 dresses through your business that is a business transaction. If however you are not registered as a business/ self employed & you sell 2 dresses that is a private sale/transaction.

Yeah, that's sane enough, I'll let you have that 😁

I was with a friend who did really well and achieved a great job in the city ( think professional )
she stopped working to bring up her family ( aged 30)
when someone recently asked what she did she said she was a retired ( insert profession )
I was a bit surprised as it was 25 yrs ago
but i guess it’s interpretation and maybe she regrets leaving the field completely

Its the guys on online dating who do this

CEO
Consultant

They usually own an ice cream van or work in a shoe shop. Nil shade but its not really what you expect from such a loaded title.

Re feeling silly, I don't at all because things like that aren't really important to me and I'm a grown up so I feel okay making mistakes. I teach my DC that it's okay to make mistakes and to not tease people who do. Maybe I need to care more about what other people think though 😉

I had an ex who says on his Linked in he is a 'hotelier'

He runs a B and B in a seaside town

🤣

Woohoo, I'm sane! Glad I'm not a half-witted muppet! 😆

My DH was a bit confused because they keep sending me mail and he couldn't understand why it said Dr on it, so I had to confess!

Working bloody hard for them still doesn't make them a doctor. Telling someone you're a doctor when you know full well that you are giving them the impression that you are a medical doctor, is just as cringy as calling yourself a CEO when you are not.

I work at a university so never assume a doctor is a medical doctor. That being said, I've never heard any of our academics refer to their job as being dr. They'd give it as a title but when asked what they do will say they're an academic/lecturer/researcher.

This is what I always think. People who are the real deal don't have anything to prove.

It's the same with the 'Managing Director' thing. Being a MD of a small company is a more realistic title than CEO, as pretty much all companies have the former but only usually the latter if fairly large.

However, ost of my mates who are genuine MDs of small companies just say something like "I run an xyz business". The ones who tend to make a big fuss about the MD title are those who've appointed themselves MD of a home business etc - MD of selling scented candles on Etsy etc.

Anybody can pay £20 set up a limited company and call themselves an MD. I've even got one which I registered for a contract which would've necessitated it but which I didn't take on in the end. Maybe I need to start saying I'm an MD who also helps run several other businesses (no need to mention the other companies are all under same umbrella. 🤷‍♀️)

I think what you meant was “I provide end-to-end visibility solutions in the B2C arena”, not window cleaner ;)

😂😂😂

This is one of the nastiest threads I've seen on here for some time.

She owns and runs the business. It's not like she's a hairdresser pretending to be a firefighter.

The term might not be technically correct but it puts across what she's doing/her role just fine.

You and others on this thread sound really scathing and up your own arses frankly.

You're definitely not her friend seeing as you've started a thread to humiliate her.

Oh is it my turn to point out that the medical doctor is simply courtesy title with the true title of doctor originating from the academic PhD?

If i saw the name Dr Foo, it wouldn't occur to me to assume they were medical doctors unless it was in a medical context and they introduced themselves as such.

Working bloody hard for them still doesn't make them a doctor. Telling someone you're a doctor when you know full well that you are giving them the impression that you are a medical doctor, is just as cringy as calling yourself a CEO when you are not.

I cannot imagine anyone with a PhD telling anyone they are a doctor. Dr in an academic sense is a title, not a role.

I’m a headhunter and exactly this.

my old boss used to call herself CEO too. Cringey.
you can only be a chief executive if you have lots of executives.

business owner or founder is what you are.

The term might not be technically correct but it puts across what she's doing/her role just fine.

In what way?

Telling somebody you're a CEO doesn't at all put across that you run a gym. In fact, it would suggest to most people that she works in a senior corporate role at a medium to large company.

I'd say it actually is technically correct if that's the title she's chosen for running her business but that it doesn't put across what she does. It's literally the opposite of what you stated. 😂

Ha!

Every fucker is a CEO these days.

This!

I'm saying that a good friend doesn't find ways to find fault with the people they love and they don't go online looking for backup for that fault-finding.

If your friend was hideous dancer and you heard her say 'I'm a pretty good dancer' to someone, how would you respond? A loving person would smile and think 'I'm glad she thinks she's good' - they would never want her to know that she's not good, they would want the best for her and hope she always has this positive feeling about herself. A nasty, mean friend would mock her behind her back.

Threads like this make me really thankful for the wonderful people I have in my life who are genuinely kind.

Not sure I agree. I defo have some good mates who absolutely act like dickheads in particular ways.

One of my best male friends has got into all this Instagram coaching nonsense and is now offering mentorship around how to 'optimise your earnings', despite not exactly being rich himself. All stuff regurgitated from other videos he's watched.

He's changed his title to 'Entrepreneur' on his profile and his tagline is something like 'helping people maximise their earnings' alongside some keywords/tags like 'six figure salary', 'hustle life', etc.

It's highly embarrassing/cringy and I keep hinting at this/taking the piss as much as I can without out completely butting heads with him. You should be able to tell good mates the truth, not lie to them.