Conference 7.286::digital

... who has worked in personnel for many years, there is a very
simple reason for the name change.  MONEY!  When you "manage" 
resources, you obviously have a more important job.  And also
you get paid more for this more important function.  Personnel
folks just push paper, right?  But a Human Resources Manager
must do much more important stuff.
<sarcasm/off>

Why did US Steel change its name?  Why does anyone change the
name?  Because over time you collect a lot of baggage, some good
and some bad.  When there is a name change, the hope is that everyone
will forget about the old baggage and you can start fresh.

Lee G.

    That's one of my pet peeves.
    
    I especially get ticked off when someone says "we need 4 resources
    on this project".  My (tired) response is usually "lessee, there's
    people, computers, pencils, and what's the fourth one?".
    
    Sure, people are a resource of the company, but it's somewhat less
    than polite to refer a person as "a resource".
    
    For a start, it makes us all sound like interchangeable parts.

    Well, the government renamed the DEPARTMENT OF WAR the DEPARTMENT OF
    DEFENSE.

    At least "Human Resources" still means the same as "Personnel"!

    /Petes

There are already 45 replies on this EXACT topic in 769.

	The term "human resource" offends me, too. "I am not a resource,
	I am a free man".

	However, I think I can see where it came from. The term "resource"
	in this context is very likely project manager's jargon. PM became
	fashionable among the managing and consulting classes a few years
	back, and so the jargon was adopted.

	Although such jargon is popular, there are serious risks when it
	is applied systematically to people (e.g. "WASP"). Speaker
	and listeners alike can tend to forget that there is a unique
	individual human being nehind the acronym, whose dignity is
	injured by being lumped into a category. In the same way, calling
	people "human resources" tends to polarise attention around what
	skills they have or what services they can supply. All right in
	the context of PM, but dehumananizing when it becomes habitual
	outside that context.

	During BBC radio coverage of the Gulf War, someone told a story
	of Winston Churchill meeting with Ike and some of his officers.
	At one point a US Army major said something about the arrangements
	for reception of FCIs, or some such acronym. Churchill asked what
	that meant. When he was told "Friendly Combat Injured" (or whatever)
	he became angry and declared "They will be known as 'wounded soldiers'".

	/Tom

    re: .4   Sorry. That topic 620 entries ago must have somehow slipped my
             mind.
    
    Thanks, 769.40! My point exactly. This "get me another resource" type
    of talk is self-important and imprecise.

    
    	re: .2
    
      >>  For a start, it makes us all sound like interchangeable parts.
    
    
    	Ah, but there it is!
    
    	In *any* company of this size all you have are interchangeable 
    	parts.  Even unto the highest levels.
    
    	Once you accept that you are a cog, that you are a drone, and
    	that corporate life will go along without you very well it
    	will make things oh, so much more pleasant.  ("I'm glad I wasn't
    	born an alpha.")  You *don't* make a difference.  If you think
    	you do you are on the road to ulcers, migraines, and worse.
    	
    	We are a Fortune 30 company, people.  Ipso facto, we are a
    	monothilic **profit** making entity.  Get thee with the
    	program or get thee to a nunnery.
    
        The company is turning a corner and is leaving its tire marks on
    	you?  Don't grouse.  That's what you're there for.  Don't grumble
    	at Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi, because you don't like your lot as
    	a prole.  You made it yourself.
    
    	You are expendable unless you make yourself otherwise and I doubt
    	there are that many around who could qualify.
    
    
    Xanthippe's Fan Club
    	

    RE: .0
    
    Garbageman became "Sanatation Engineer"
    
    Hacker became "Software Engineer"
    
    Personnel Representative became "Human Resources Manager"

    re: .7  Bingo
    
    My educated guess is that the term "resource" is deliberately used to
    "de-personalize" people issues.  It makes it much easier to use us as 
    pawns in the profit game if the conscience is assuaged.  Less emotional 
    to lay off an unneeded "resource" than an unneeded "person."  After all,
    "people" live, breathe, feel, eat & need a roof over their heads.
    
    I have even heard of companies using the term "resource units."  I have
    taken to giving myself the title "Marcom Resource Unit" as the job
    title on my tax return.  Was amused to have it come back to me on my 
    Census form...
    
    Mary

    re .7
    
>   	Once you accept that you are a cog, that you are a drone, and
>   	that corporate life will go along without you very well it
>   	will make things oh, so much more pleasant.  ("I'm glad I wasn't
>   	born an alpha.")  You *don't* make a difference.  If you think
>   	you do you are on the road to ulcers, migraines, and worse.

    But it's only by being crazy enough to think that you can make a
    difference that you _can_ make a difference.

    The day I don't think I can personally make a difference here is the
    day I know it's time to look for a new job!

    (I do agree that being crazy can have some less pleasant consequences.)

    /Peters

    The reality is that "Human Resource Managers" simply do not manage Human
    Resources. For the most part they provide some services to organization,
    to the management of the organization, or to the people in the organization.
    
    I think "Personnel Services" and "Personnel Services Management"
    are far more appropriate and descriptive than "Human Resources"
    and "Human Resources Management".
    
    d

>            <<< Note 1389.8 by GUIDUK::B_WOOD "I manage my cat?" >>>
 .
 .
 .
   
>    Hacker became "Software Engineer"


So that's why the state of software development is so screwed up...

*sigh*

    
> Note 1389.12 by HERCUL::MOSER 
    
> So that's why the state of software development is so screwed up...

    	What's wrong?
    
    	/prc

re:.7 and .10

Digital needs both of you two types of people! I say we avoid a rat-hole and
have people enter what they do around here and make this a usable resource list.

Ginger Cornwall
District Network Team    	

I'm a sales member of a team dedicated to selling TAN products. I love selling
against Novell and IBM and Sun and HP...

I'm against Stealth Marketing! ;-)

    Re.: All complaints about being dehumanized ...
    
    Long ago and far away, I once worked for Big Blue.  We were called
    Customer Engineers, CE's, until one day it was decided that since we
    were in the field, we were to be called Field Engineering Customer
    Engineers, or FECE's.  I left shortly afterward.
    
    Fred