I have noticed for well over a decade or more, perhaps 20 years or longer, really, I'm not sure when it started, but companies are reluctant to call people "employees."

Edit: I'm too young for this, but it's along the lines of Personnel from the '60s becoming Human Resources in the '70s and '80s, and Human Resources from the '90s and '00s now becoming People Operations in the '10s and '20s.

I suspect in the '30s it'll change again. Maybe one day there will be a culture change towards boring and we'll just call people "customers," "employees," and the departments responsible for hiring the "Hiring Department."

And people will get mad about that, too, because the HD will be responsible for the paperwork required to fire people, too.

This pains me so. Every time I have to hear "individual contributor", "leadership", or "the brand" I die a little inside.

Please just call me an employee or engineer. As for "leadership", I am somewhat convinced that the word "management" would lead to a mid-life crisis. Such inflated egos. As for "the brand", they are my employer.

This Newspeak has benefits though. Mainly that it hides in plain sight the top-down hierarchy of power that exists. Despite that fact that some employees are on food stamps while others make millions, it _sounds_ like everyone is on on somewhat equal footing.