purple

My employer has recently acquired a larger company, and we’re going through the subtle (and not so subtle) merger of corporate cultures. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that we are no longer employees–we have become “associates”.

“Associate”, to me, has a less permanent ring to it–associate implies a temporary relationship, an almost accidental and certainly temporary intersection. Not that “employee” is such a great word, either–”to employ” is “to make use of”, and one who is employed may very well be used up, sucked dry, and cast off. But the sudden change in terminology is at least interesting, if not a little troubling.

I’m sure that there are no nefarious intentions–no doubt The Powers That Be think “associate” has a more collegial and dignified ring to it, and certainly a more modern sound. It’s Latinate rather than French (though the word “employee” first made its way into American business jargon about 1850, making it the more “scientific” word, the 1850s being a period of great “scientification” in the management world), and has that slippery feel that this age of non-communication prefers.

The danger in a sudden switch in jargon, of course, is that people will notice it and begin to use the new lingo with a twinge of irony. I’m already guilty of this, correcting my boss when she uses the out-moded word “employee”, but so far I haven’t made the mistake of calling attention to the change to anyone who would be deaf to the irony (and who would need to be reminded that since I maintain a critical piece of spaghetti code that I commented in Gaelic and Frisian, they need to keep me around a little longer).

What ought we, the “salarymen” and “wage slaves” of the cubicle farm, be called? I’m not entirely sure. “Associate” is a step up from “resource”, which is what we inevitably get called during the annual budgeting and project planning process–that’s a word I’d like to have stricken from the business lexicon. I’m happy to play in the ambiguous space of slippery words so long as I’m left alone to do my job; barring that, it seems that the Wobblies are still around, though probably not interested in turning programmers into bomb-throwers.