So I just got out of this meeting....

[LisaM]

regarding a simple database upgrade (that is now anything but simple) where I was alternatively referred to as a "stakeholder" and a "database resource".

When did I stop being a person?

Don't even get me started on the interview I did with a prospective employee who showed up wearing a Bluetooth device on her ear......

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

1. Was it glowing ?

I hate those damn things. Looks like a giant bug on the ear.

[Taverner]

2. In Capitalism, we are all 'company resources'

How the Capitalists can decry pornography's objectification of a woman on one hand, but be perfectly willing to objectify the worker on the other shows deep hypocrisy

[LisaM]

3. Is this the norm?

Of course, they want our IT department to be completely generic - we use that damned ticket system, and the days of building personal relationships to get things done are gone - but it was unnerving. I think Taverner explained it well.

[supernova]

4. Business language is appalling

in it's singular ability to dehumanize and render lifeless any endeavor.

One of the great virtues of business used to be (or so I thought) your (expected) ability to speak plainly in frank, blunt English.

That went by the wayside a long time ago. *Sigh*

There's a book out now about how advertising/marketing lingo has taken over nearly all forms of communication. I can't remember the title now.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. It's appalling and absolutely intentional.

Employees are reminded repeatedly that they are replaceable widgets.

[supernova]

9. Agree totally

Today's business language is absolutely generated to make it seem like you aren't talking about what you are in fact talking about, like you aren't having the motives for it that you do, that you don't expect at all the results you've already anticipated.

It's designed to cover up and disguise reality. And if you ask most people if they are aware of these, they look totally clueless.

[LisaM]

11. And nothing ever gets done!

That's the kicker.

[supernova]

12. That's the problem with using obfuscating language

ultimately it renders everybody useless because they are too busy looking "concerned," and "worried," and "professional," when in fact what they are really doing is just trying to decipher what everyone else is saying!

:banghead::argh:

[Gormy Cuss]

14. I worked in a passive voice culture.

Proposals were active voice (e.g."We'll do it.") Reports of failure were always made in the passive voice ("Mistakes were made.") It drove me up the wall.

[LisaM]

17. Oh, that would drive me nuts!

Well, I should says, DRIVES me nuts, since it's pretty endemic.

[supernova]

19. Fortune 5 company

I worked in.

That language is pretty typical, required in fact if you don't want to take the fallout for a project that went badly.

[BOSSHOG]

6. There would be no perspective employee

I would not have even interviewed the person. Obviously her attention was not devoted to a potential employer. Bye, bye!!

[LisaM]

7. Well I was not the only person involved in the interview

But that's a different story!

Heck, someone interviewed for my boyfriend's company and took three cell phone calls during the course of the interview. That's WORSE.

[BOSSHOG]

8. The interview

(at your boyfriend's company) would have terminated after the first cell phone call was taken if I were doing the interviewing. Preparing for an interview is not that difficult, however if such behavior is accepted and people get hired after doing it, the fault surely does not rest with the interviewee.

[LisaM]

10. The person for his company was not hired

I have interviewed a fair number of people the past few years. Aside from things like bringing communications devices into the interviews, you wouldn't believe what they put on resumes, almost all of it irrelevant to the task at hand.

[1gobluedem]

13. I interviewed a woman who said she couldn't work with the radio on

I work at a radio station.

She didn't get the job.

[ashling]

15. Oh please, please: we want to hear about the interview

:bounce:

[ashling]

16. Meetings

the productive way to avoid work

[supernova]

18. Once you get past a certain level

in the food chain.

There is no more "work." There are only meetings.