Anyone else disturbed by modern day newspeak?

[Qqmike]

All this energy, and all these good ideas ... wasted. Wasted here and elsewhere, all around the country.
People need to organize in some effective way (to get change done) and/or to write (flood) congress reps and the prez.
Needed: drastic action. Not more incisive, sometimes subtle, rational analysis. I believe that even the congressmen know what changes are needed (though they will resist in their own selfish interests).

[HalationEffect]

I think that the flawed system of "representative" government is responsible for a decent part of the phenomenon called voter apathy. Personally, I haven't voted in over a decade for the simple reason that none of the parties that I could vote for are parties that I want to vote for. "Vote tactically!" people tell me. "Try to make sure that the party you like least doesn't get voted in." Fine, but I dislike them all pretty much equally. None of them represent me.

I want to vote on the issues. I don't want to vote for some unethical sleazebag that, once in office, will go back on campaign promises quicker than you can say "manilla envelope stuffed with cash". I genuinely believe that it doesn't matter who I vote for, because all the choices suck.

[vw72]

I have been involved in some research lately surrounding "Human Factors" which I thought was a funny title. It means human behavior and psychology, but seems to be designed to obfuscate it's true meaning.

One reason our populist representative government doesn't work well is because our representatives don't actually do what the majority of the people they represent ask them to do. I definitely think a great many issues need to be settled via direct democracy.

I think there a lots of ways we can improve on our current system, just very little impetus to do so.

1. Term limits: I don't think the Framers intended Congress to be a career, and I don't think it should be.

A number of States have enacted term limits and they have just the opposite effect as intended. People are elected and push their short term agendas and are out. Staff, who are not elected, now hold the institutional knowledge, and become the power brokers. A better solution is to enact the term limits the founding fathers had in mind called the ballot box.

2. Campaign finance reform: It's way too easy to buy a position in the government. Totally transparent documentation of the source of all campaign funds would be a good start. Maybe campaigns should be financed publicly and private donations should be only allowed to a particular office or issue - not a specific candidate or side? I realize this would virtually end private donations, but it would also end buying influence. If a multimillionaire wants to run for office, let him donate to the general campaign fund for that office and then stand toe-to-toe, dollar-for-dollar with the competition. Obviously, there are numerous problems with this idea - but it's a starting point.

This is the number one thing that needs to change to restore the US to a representative democracy. Right now we have plutocracy in the US. If you get big money out of the government, then those in power will answer to the people. Case in point with the current budget debates. Poll after poll shows that most republicans in the country (varying between 68% to 87%) are in favor of cutting spending AND raising taxes. Yet the republican leadership is only willing to cut taxes. Why? Because that is what super-pacs and large contributors want and if they don't play along they will put somebody else in office who will. For the record, the democrats are just as bad, I just picked on the republicans for the example, but it happens with both parties.

3. Discontinue "Earmarks": The #1 way Congress manipulates money in near-secrecy.

Just about everybody agrees with this until you talk about earmarks that impact their state. It's like cuts to entitlements. Everybody says to cut them, but when you start listing them off, nobody thinks any individual ones should be cut.

4. Restore States Rights: As Steve pointed out WY != CA or any other state for that matter. There is way too much Federal over-reach.

I would agree with this to an extent, but along with eliminating the federal overreach would you also eliminate the shifting of federal funds collected from one state and transferred to another? Put differently, if a state is willing to accept federal funding, should they also be willing to accept the strings attached with that funding?

A prime example is Federal Highway funds. States can opt out of the Federal Highway excise tax, but they won't get any federal highway money if they do. I often wonder why they don't do this, as most states are donor states to other states. Donor states could opt out and increase their state fuel tax to the same level as what the federal tax was and have more money for their own roads. Well, I do know why they don't do this, because of those silly strings. If you don't play the game, you won't get other funding for other programs (and I don't mean earmarks).

But, there is nothing stopping a state from putting their money where their mouth is and cutting themself off from the federal dole. Most, just don't want to give up the benefits they receive (like funding for airports, bridges and highways, research grants, student loans, disaster funds, corp of engineer projects, etc.).

Of course, none of the above will happen until big money is removed from politics. And the likelihood of that happening before the second coming is nil.


Okay, I'm getting off my soap box (and I don't own an ammo box) to go back to play with linux!

[vw72]

It is?

I'd still like to be considered to be person or a member of staff rather than part of the resource available to meet the daily targets and ensure that SLAs (service level agreements) are met.

Am I getting too old for the company that employs me? Only 1,908 working days and I'm a free man. Yes, I have worked it out.

But in economic terms, if you are not a resource, you are a burden. Regardless, one way or the other, you are still an employee or member of the staff. I would think your desire is to be considered a resource or an asset to the organization, versus a burden or liability.

As for meeting daily targets or SLAs, that is actually the old management model, where employees are a cog in the wheel, so to speak. Looking at employees as a resource values them not just on whether or not they meet their daily targets or SLAs or other measurement of output, but what else they bring to the organization. An older programmer may not be able to code as quickly as younger programmer, but the years of experience are still of value because of the insight it gives to problem solving or stability to the team or any number of reasons. The old way only looked at inputs and outputs and older workers, in this example, were often seen more as burden because they were less efficient when using those criteria. Modern human resource management looks at the total contribution a worker makes to the organization, including the less tangible contributions that are often hard to quantify. In such an environment, an employee's value goes beyond just their output because they are more than cogs on a wheel.

That is why modern Human Resource Management, where managementt views employees as one of the strategic resources of an enterprise is preferable to the old personnel management style that viewed employees as a burden or cost to be controlled (usually through draconian measures).

[HalationEffect]

Hmm, I hope this thread doesn't go completely over to US-specific governmental issues... soooo boring! :P

Less tongue-in-cheek, such a discussion naturally tends to exclude those of us not from the US.

[HalationEffect]

That is why modern Human Resource Management, where managementt views employees as one of the strategic resources of an enterprise is preferable to the old personnel management style that viewed employees as a burden or cost to be controlled (usually through draconian measures).

Ahh, now y'see you're talking about business processes. I was talking about semantics*. I say let businesses do all the human resource management they like, but call the department a Personnel Department.

Calling it a Human Resource Department is (ironically enough) de-humanising, and as such it is bad for employee morale.

* (Edit) Perhaps 'Sociolinguistics' would be more accurate.

[oshunluvr]

Hmm, I hope this thread doesn't go completely over to US-specific governmental issues... soooo boring! :P

Less tongue-in-cheek, such a discussion naturally tends to exclude those of us not from the US.

Ooo... let's talk about loss of privacy! Then you can participate!

[HalationEffect]

Ooo... let's talk about loss of privacy! Then you can participate!

I'm a hermit who lives in a cave on a mountainside*, so I have loads of privacy!

* That's an English mountain. In other countries, these are commonly referred to as 'hills'.

In truth, the surveillance thing in the UK is massively overblown in the media. I went on a bit of a research frenzy on the subject last year, and it turns out that there are far fewer government (including local government) operated CCTV cameras in the UK than people think there are. The vast majority of CCTV systems here are privately owned & operated.

[vw72]

Hmm, I hope this thread doesn't go completely over to US-specific governmental issues... soooo boring! :P

Less tongue-in-cheek, such a discussion naturally tends to exclude those of us not from the US.

Don't you know, for those of us on this side of the pond, everything revolves around us. That's why we even abbreviate the name of the country as US!

[HalationEffect]

Don't you know, for those of us on this side of the pond, everything revolves around us. That's why we even abbreviate the name of the country as US!

Can't we throw out US-centrism in favour of heliocentrism, like we did with geocentrism?

Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo are surely spinning in their graves!

[dibl]

But in economic terms, if you are not a resource, you are a burden.

No, that's only a half-truth, vw. I was in "senior management" (I was the President) for an engineering company in the early 2000s for a number of years, and part of the job is looking at positions, what they cost, and what benefit they provide the enterprise. If employees were only burdens, you could fire them all and get rich instantly. Employees provide service, either directly to products or customers, or indirectly to the organization in order to facilitate the services for products and customers. It easier to assess the value of "direct" employees -- their work translates more or less directly to sales revenues. It is much harder to assess the value of "indirect" employees -- accountants, middle managers, marketing folks, HR managers, etc. etc. There are "pluses and minuses" when assessing a group of ostensibly equally qualified and similarly-titled individuals -- some individuals generate a disproportionate amount of customer feedback, positive or negative. Some individuals are team builders, and some are morale destroyers. Some leave a trail of glowing peer reviews and unexpected contributions to their projects. Others leave a trail of peer complaints and broken commitments. I never forgot for one minute that each employee is a human being with human needs and human frailties. But the responsibility is to the organization as a whole, including the shareholders, and sometimes it was necessary to let someone go express their humanity somewhere else, if you see what I mean.

[vw72]

No, that's only a half-truth, vw. I was in "senior management" (I was the President) for an engineering company in the early 2000s for a number of years, and part of the job is looking at positions, what they cost, and what benefit they provide the enterprise. If employees were only burdens, you could fire them all and get rich instantly. Employees provide service, either directly to products or customers, or indirectly to the organization in order to facility the services for products and customers. It easier to assess the value of "direct" employees -- their work translates more or less directly to sales revenues. It is much harder to assess the value of "indirect" employees -- accountants, middle managers, marketing folks, HR managers, etc. etc. There are "pluses and minuses" when assessing a group of ostensibly equally qualified and similarly-titled individuals -- some individuals generate a disproportionate amount of customer feedback, positive or negative. Some individuals are team builders, and some are morale destroyers. Some leave a trail of glowing peer reviews and unexpected contributions to their projects. Others leave a trail of peer complaints and broken commitments. I never forgot for one minute that each employee is a human being with human needs and human frailties. But the responsibility is to the organization as a whole, including the shareholders, and sometimes it was necessary to let someone go express their humanity somewhere else, if you see what I mean.

I would posit that you did indeed let go of any employees that were only economic burdens and did not provide any economic resource to the entity. Any business would do that as such an employee is a drain on the other resources, such as capital (funds). But in practice, it is next to impossible to have an employee that is only a burden and not provide some resource. However, what you describe, the balancing of pluses and minuses goes to show that the employees are more than just the output they produce. Put differently, we are probably all aware of the cracker jack programmer or engineer who is impossible to get along with and is disruptive. So, no matter how good they are at the technical side of the position, the burden or cost entailed does not exceed the resource or benefit provided and they must go.

That is all part of viewing employees as a resource. Otherwise, we would only look at the work they produced and not care about the rest. That might have worked on the old fashioned assembly line (although I doubt it). But modern management has found that management gets what they expect. If the mentality is that they hire lazy, deadbeat employees who are trying to rip them off, then that is what they will have. Why? Because they will implement policies and procedures to control the employees to guard against such behavior and the non-lazy, non-deadbeat employees will cringe under the the thumb-screws and go look elsewhere for employment. On the other hand, if management expects it's employees to act in a professional manner and be responsible, then guess, what, the studies show they will rise to the occasion and do exactly that. Of course, for that to work, they still need to be held, and actually expect to be held accountable and that process weeds out those who don't share those values.

It seems to me, from what you describe, that what you were doing is the latter and yes, sometimes that means letting people go. It's not because the person is not valued, but from a business perspective, the value they bring to the table, the resources they provide, do not outweigh the cost or economic burden.

We often had a saying at my former position when a manager would complain about their being dead-wood on their staff. We would ask the manager why they hired the employee if they were dead-wood, to which the manager would often reply they weren't dead-wood when they hired them. To which we would ask, then what did they do to kill them off? It was a great place to work, because the employees were viewed as the most important "resource" the entity had and they were treated accordingly.

[dibl]

To which we would ask, then what did they do to kill them off?

Right there is an EXCELLENT point.

I read a lot of books during my career, trying to improve my management capabilities. For anyone who has the slightest interest in the topic of workplace motivation, I highly recommend "Punished by Rewards ...." by Alfie Kohn. His bottom line, which I find totally correct by empirical observation, is this: The typical person wakes up every morning hoping to show up on the job and produce something of value, i.e. to be productive, not so much for his/her employer but because of an internal desire to be useful. All the "motivational techniques" that so-called managers employ to try to extract more or different kinds of productivity are manipulative, and there are few things hated more by the average person that that feeling of being manipulated. So manipulation breeds disgust and demotivation, and generates "dead wood" in the technical staff. I don't know how many arguments I had with mid-level managers who had cooked up some "motivational" technique to get their people to work longer or harder or differently. I told them to go take their employees out to lunch unexpectedly one day, and tell them how much their work is appreciated, and drop the manipulation.

[woodsmoke]

I used to listen to NPR (that is the U.S. version of the BBC) for the "smart people", exclusively, up until probably 15 years or so ago.

Then I noticed that the "news people" were using terms such as:

"impacted"
"Impactful"
"theory" for "opinion"

etc. etc.

And then one day.... they had a "meaningful" and "trenchant" discussion of, I think it was, the "Thorndyke" ....three pounder.... high school/collegiate dictionary.....the latest iteration for that year.

A little history is in order here....

It used to be....REALLY, that Dictionary companies really did go through the "paper trash" of businesses to look at discarded letters, memos, purchase orders, that kind of stuff to get a handle on "new terms" for business, etc. and those words, if plentiful would be included in the next dictionary.

A kind of similar thing happened with "music" etc... going through trash cans in music businessess, etc.

Actually a very workable technique.

Welll that year....the dictionary defined "dead end job" as..... "a job at a fast food business"......

Ok.......that is NOT a "dead end job".....I know that the elites do not want to here this but an incredible number of franchises for "fast food joints" are owned by people who started out "flipping burgers"...

"flipping burgers" is not a "dead end job".....

It used to be called "an entry level job".....

Until the elites decided that every single person in the U.S. HAS to go to college or they just really are not all that bright and will, of course, be "dead enders"....

And so any "job" therefore has to have a derogatory term applied to it so that the supposedly stupid people will "get smarter" and go to college!

Great way to get people on your side.....call them dumb. Works every time...not! lol

But...be that may..... the "fast food" people went kind of.....ummmm nuts....

And of course....NPR had to come down on the side of the dictionary because NPR people very nicely forget that the "gubbmint money" and the "foundation" money comes from ....people's taxes....and BUSINESSES....donations and taxes....

It was all very sniffy, sniffy, and please pass the whine and cheese while we pour vitriol on McDonalds .....

Now these are THE people who say that they are SO SMART....they use nothing but "proper" english...and sneer at kids using "street slang"...

So....

after I heard the "news speak" of "impactful" I decided that they were not so smart after all....and..i stopped listening to NPR and never have tuned it again.

Just like the SMART PEOPLE.....don't listen to Fox News...

It goes both ways....

woodsmoke

As a PPS.....another contributory factor was that the supposed music experts at NPR were completely hoodwinked by a young woman doing her PHD thesis on "discovering" the "lost piano rolls" of George Gershwin....

Welll I had the LP record of those supposedly lost piano rolls two decades earlier..... when I called the NPR people they just blew me off......when I offered to take a photograph.....yes a PHOTOGRAPH of the front and back covers and mail it to them.....they hung up....

So much for eddikated elites.

[Kitzune]

Unfortunately that's the way things are headed, so we'll be hearing a lot more of it. But of course the free minded thinkers will always thrive in that sort of enviornment.