I started work at a place where I didn't have an office but worked on a folding table with a broken chair in a small storage room. After the first month of this it became intolerable. I noticed though that there was a very large office formerly used as a hardware testing lab that was no longer occupied. I came in one weekend with some friends when no one was there and moved most everything out of that room up two stories to a large storage area, and furnished it with the good old filing cabinet and hollow door desk, put posters on the wall, and swapped in a new high end computer and monitors that were supposed to be for an executive. Everyone assumed that someone else had cleared this and by the time anyone figured it out (if they did) no one said anything.

At places where I don't get a business card, I borrow one from the executives and have it cloned at a card shop with my own info. Usually I will get two or three boxes each with different titles and then pass these out at conferences with a title appropriate to whatever I am discussing with someone.

Speaking of conferences, I have never asked for permission to go to them. I just do, and then submit expenses.