Corporate garbage-speak. [View all]

[silverweb]

The few corporate jobs I've had over the years invariably drove me crazy. The inescapable pressure to conform to a particular corporate culture is relentless, even when disguised in employee-friendly language.

The change of "Personnel" to "Human Resources" is one of my oldest pet peeves. When did that actually happen, anyway? In the '80's? It seemed that, all of a sudden, every Personnel Department in the country became "Human Resources." In our capitalistic society, resources exist to be exploited. I'll bet that makes you feel valued as an employee!

At present, I work for a corporate entity that's all in for employee-lulling gobbledygook. (They bought out the small company I had been working for, which really was family-like and employee friendly.) The Personnel Department is called "Talent and Culture," and "transparency and accountability" are major objectives. The latter part is mostly for lower-level employees, of course, who are assigned "tasks" via an app, must enter the time it took to complete said tasks (in addition to the usual timeclock punches), and must mark them completed. Many of these also require a photo attached, showing the completed task. It doesn't improve the quality of the work, the skill or efficiency of workers and their methods, or anything else; it just adds another layer of poorly cloaked surveillance and control.

I realize that the larger any organization gets, the more structure it needs to function effectively, and that's not unreasonable. A lot of the stuff now, however, is just bullshit elevated to an absurd level of CYA, self-aggrandizement, and exploitation, masquerading as some kind of New-Agey, noble purpose; all the while, though, it's nothing but a manufactured veneer to hide their fakery. I hate it the same way I hated the stupidly awful, everyone-must-cheer, rah-rah "pep rallies" we were forced to attend every morning at one job I suffered through (briefly, thank goodness).

This article lays it all out. An excellent read.
Why do corporations speak the way they do?