Unclear and misleading language

Political correctness simply obscures reality. In the case of Personnel vs Human Resources, the implication is that personnel were once living people and should be respected as individuals. Resources are non-living things, like coal, oil, or different mineral ores, to be mined, burned or smelted; used, and then disposed of when no longer functional.

Consider this. When do CEOs or corporate directors ever get hired through Human Resource Departments? Managers and supervisors, perhaps. Someone mentioned Staffing Office. How about Labor Pool Table? That’s for mail clerks, and copy machine operators, and file clerks.

In today’s world of disguises, no self-respecting person wants to be anything less than an administrative assistant. HR needs a new title, something like: Human Educational and Corporate Community Development Division. That should make any hourly wage slave feel good about themselves and the future.

In the last 10 years we have moved towards being judged on talking a good game not your actions. We had a prime minister whose whole approach was predicated on gloss, spin and rhetoric even by politicians (low) standards and it seems that in industry, senior management are similarly impressed by BS. This shift in language is not as trivial as it first seems. There seems to be a type of moron who hides behind this fudging and soft-pedalling using it to do a mediocre job at best. I just hope there enough of us with the integrity and intelligence to see through and challenge soundbite culture, wherever it occurs.
Also, the police are not a 'service' - law,order and justice are cornerstones of civilisation. There are times when that is 'force' - pure and simple. People who interact with the police are not there for a 'customer experience'.
As Mark Twain once said (I believe) - "Common sense ain't".

I agree with Overlifty. The job description 'secretary' seems to be passe and degrading these days. Now they're executive assistants, personal assistants and office managers and administators. How come they still do the filing, book meetings and make the coffee then?

I find that softer, more pleasant descriptions like 'service' instead of 'force' or customer' instead of 'passenger' are usually accompanied by a worse or more expensive service. It's just superficial bullshit.

I remember being told at a meeting about fifteen years ago that I was a "schedulable resource", not long after our personnel department was renamed Human Resources. It seems they've decided we're not actually people any more, just resources that can be used until we drop. It's all intended to dehumanise so they can feel better about shafting us.

The gripe is perfectly valid and I agree with it. Having been out of the workplace now, as a housewife for many years, I have been overwhelmed at the changes in office and job descriptions, let alone general daily life. Junior clerks are now "administrative assistants" , for example, and there are numerous others with pompous titles involving the words "co-ordinator", "advisor", "administrator" , "operations" and God knows how many more. I wonder if it's all to do with psyching people up to make them think that they've got an "important" position in society?
I used to laugh every time Ann Robinson on "The Weakest Link" challenged her contestants to give a more concise description of their airy-fairy-sounding jobs. Certainly used to bring some of them down to earth with a wallop.

Read old books and newpapers and you see " A hotel..." but nowadays it's "An hotel..." Madness.

Personnel dept = yuk. Human Resources = yuk. What's wrong with just

Staffing office?

Actually the renaming is simply a refelection of the fact that human beings are now simply ciphers, and of no real consequence to the business.

I agree the way officious people explain things to us poor mortals confuses that much that in the end we tend to give up anyway.Also peoples job titles change practically from week to week.Mine started off as classroom assistant then went to teaching assistant then teachers assistant and now its learning mentor.I do much the same job as I have for the past ten years but with a different title.Don't ask me why?
I think some of the worst people at tech talk are computer technicians.They tend to talk to you in highly technical language assuming that you actually know what they are waffling on about.I usually let them waffle for about half an hour then tell them that I don't understand a word they've said and could they repeat in simple terms.

So are you saying, if the change has been made for reasons of Political Correctness that the change is valid, but not if it has been done to confuse?

Isn't political correctness an attempt to curb Freedom of Speech?

Something that results in a change of department name within an organisation - public or private is going to be the result of some Consultancy excercise carried out by the organisation. The silly changes reflect an organisation's poor managerial ability. The fact that such terms could be copied by others is just demoralizing. If the organisation was well managed, why would it need to buy into everything a consultancy exercise recommends?

trivial! the language we speak now has changed enormously from 200 years ago, our language has been constantly changing for better or worse since the first person formed his/her first syllable. Police force/Police service - noone would care if they did their job. Ditto personnel.

You're right, the gripe sound sound and is trivial.