'Feedback' Is Now Too Harsh. The New Word is 'Feedforward' (livemint.com) 324
The Wall Street Journal reports that more companies are phasing out "feedback" bosses give to workers — and replacing it with "feedforward."
"The idea is that 'feedforward' gives people less anxiety," the Journal's reporter said in a video interview. "It's a little bit gentler. When people hear 'feedback', they think immediately, 'What have I done wrong? What are the bad things my boss is going to tell me to fix?'" And another reason that we're hearing "feedforward" at these companies over and over is employees are younger. Younger employees make up a larger percentage of the workforce today, and a number of experts with whom we spoke said that younger employees are more comfortable with gentler terms like "feedforward"...
Q: So they're trying to appeal to the younger employees who are sensitive to harsher reviews, feedback or criticism. But do the employees need to learn how to better receive this type of constructive criticism, regardless of what you call it?
A: Some experts say that younger employees do need to be prepared for negative feedback. And just the rebranding or replacing of a word could have a negative effect, and perhaps managers won't be as comfortable providing negative feedback if they're just thinking about this as a way to tell an employee what they've done well...
Certain companies are really revamping their entire review process, trying to make it so that employees and managers are more communicative and really addressing any issues or concerns, so that they can work more productively. In some cases if companies are just rebranding "feedback" with "feedforward" or other terms, people with whom I spoke were concerned that this is just a hollow effort.
And there is a possibility that younger generations won't learn about what they're doing wrong and how to improve... [W]e did speak with an expert who said that baby boomers learned to suck it up and perform. And this trend really is generational.
From the Journal's article: At Microsoft, managers are encouraged to use the word "perspectives" instead of traditional feedback, according to current and former employees. Reviews, meanwhile, have been branded as "connect" conversations. The company also recently stopped including anonymous comments from peers in employee reviews, instead showing the names of the colleagues in question... Jennifer Solomon-Baum, a former Microsoft marketing director who left early this year, says she understands why the company chose to rethink its approach to feedback, which she feels may have made employees more open to giving feedback. On the other hand, she says Microsoft's recent decision to put an end to anonymous peer feedback in reviews completely backfired. In the wake of the change, "we didn't get the richness of constructive criticism," says Solomon-Baum, who is now consulting and leading marketing for a new ballet company in Los Angeles. "It became a praise festival...."
The divide on the issue is partially generational, several HR specialists say... Many younger employees entered the workforce while managers had loosened expectations on productivity and performance, and may have had less stringent grading in college amid remote classes, making the postpandemic adjustment more difficult. "It's the first time that they have not just gotten professional feedback, but it might be the first time in quite a while that somebody said, 'You know, this isn't good enough,'" says Megan Gerhardt, a management professor at Miami University and the author of a book on leading intergenerational workforces.
"I refuse to believe this is true," writes Apple blogger John Gruber, "and if it is true, my feedback is that any company that encounters an employee who bristles at the word feedback should fire them on the spot."
"The idea is that 'feedforward' gives people less anxiety," the Journal's reporter said in a video interview. "It's a little bit gentler. When people hear 'feedback', they think immediately, 'What have I done wrong? What are the bad things my boss is going to tell me to fix?'" And another reason that we're hearing "feedforward" at these companies over and over is employees are younger. Younger employees make up a larger percentage of the workforce today, and a number of experts with whom we spoke said that younger employees are more comfortable with gentler terms like "feedforward"...
Q: So they're trying to appeal to the younger employees who are sensitive to harsher reviews, feedback or criticism. But do the employees need to learn how to better receive this type of constructive criticism, regardless of what you call it?
A: Some experts say that younger employees do need to be prepared for negative feedback. And just the rebranding or replacing of a word could have a negative effect, and perhaps managers won't be as comfortable providing negative feedback if they're just thinking about this as a way to tell an employee what they've done well...
Certain companies are really revamping their entire review process, trying to make it so that employees and managers are more communicative and really addressing any issues or concerns, so that they can work more productively. In some cases if companies are just rebranding "feedback" with "feedforward" or other terms, people with whom I spoke were concerned that this is just a hollow effort.
And there is a possibility that younger generations won't learn about what they're doing wrong and how to improve... [W]e did speak with an expert who said that baby boomers learned to suck it up and perform. And this trend really is generational.
From the Journal's article: At Microsoft, managers are encouraged to use the word "perspectives" instead of traditional feedback, according to current and former employees. Reviews, meanwhile, have been branded as "connect" conversations. The company also recently stopped including anonymous comments from peers in employee reviews, instead showing the names of the colleagues in question... Jennifer Solomon-Baum, a former Microsoft marketing director who left early this year, says she understands why the company chose to rethink its approach to feedback, which she feels may have made employees more open to giving feedback. On the other hand, she says Microsoft's recent decision to put an end to anonymous peer feedback in reviews completely backfired. In the wake of the change, "we didn't get the richness of constructive criticism," says Solomon-Baum, who is now consulting and leading marketing for a new ballet company in Los Angeles. "It became a praise festival...."
The divide on the issue is partially generational, several HR specialists say... Many younger employees entered the workforce while managers had loosened expectations on productivity and performance, and may have had less stringent grading in college amid remote classes, making the postpandemic adjustment more difficult. "It's the first time that they have not just gotten professional feedback, but it might be the first time in quite a while that somebody said, 'You know, this isn't good enough,'" says Megan Gerhardt, a management professor at Miami University and the author of a book on leading intergenerational workforces.
"I refuse to believe this is true," writes Apple blogger John Gruber, "and if it is true, my feedback is that any company that encounters an employee who bristles at the word feedback should fire them on the spot."
Lost for words (Score:5, Insightful)
No really, I'm lost for words.
How fucking stupid can thing in the corporate world, led by "HR" become?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They changed "master" to "main" so really we can't get any lower.
Humans can't live without religion. If we discard an old one we simply invent something new to take its place, and clearly aren't up to the task.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They changed "master" to "main" so really we can't get any lower.
Humans can't live without religion. If we discard an old one we simply invent something new to take its place, and clearly aren't up to the task.
This is so true, and I've been pointing it out for decades now. One might not like the old religions, but at least they stood the test of time and had a thousand plus years for people to debate and come up with some consistency.
When I read stuff like this, I just shake my head. They're saying younger people can't handle feedback so they have to change the word to "feedforward", but it's the same concept. (I'd not that my spellchecker didn't underline "feedforward", so clearly all the cool kids are using t
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Informative)
(I'd not that my spellchecker didn't underline "feedforward", so clearly all the cool kids are using this word already).
Probably because it’s been an engineering term for over half a century. Instead of a feedback controller which typically generates a signal off the error between what you got and what you want, feed forward control uses knowledge of the system response and predictions of future inputs to begin compensating for the error before it happens and thus can be a superior control method for some systems.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Insightful)
People who think the words feedforward and feedback can be interchanged without (possibly complete) loss of meaning should be regarded as illiterates.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Funny)
They changed "master" to "main" so really we can't get any lower.
What are you talking about? It put an end to that whole slavery thing. People routinely adopt their Git repository names as their identities, and you may want a bunch of slave masters running around but no thank you. I oppose slavery.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Funny)
I oppose slavery.
....slowly moving hand from "Cancel" button.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Funny)
They changed "master" to "main" so really we can't get any lower.
Another benefit, when people knock on the bathroom door these days, I just say: Go away, I am mainbaiting, and it is totally less embarrassing.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
SVN used trunk from the outset, because that is the development model that traditional VCS was designed around.
Considering that git was designed for distributed development model, there is no "master" branch that actually has any special meaning over other branches.
If your development model requires there to be a dedicated branch where most development is done, then "main" is much more descriptive anyway, since, you know, many programming languages' entry point is a function called "ma
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lost for words (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet, here you are, wetting your pants over people wanting to use different words to make others feel more comfortable.
There is no group more thin-skinned that conservatives. You snowflakes seem to always be melting over something...
Re: (Score:2)
Yet, here you are, wetting your pants over people wanting to use different words to make others feel more comfortable.
They only feel more comfortable because they don't know what the word means. When they learn that it is the same as "feedback", thither comes the list of things the boss wants me to improve, they will feel the same stress. Thank you for showing that advocates are morons.
Re: Lost for words (Score:2)
I'm not conservative nor am I a snowflake
But, if I do work and submit it to my peers for review they are giving back their opinion and or facts I might have missed (I am humon)
They are feeding me back valuable information not teaching me how to do a thing
Re: Lost for words (Score:3)
Yet, here you are, wetting your pants over people wanting to use different words to make others feel more comfortable.
There is no group more thin-skinned that conservatives. You snowflakes seem to always be melting over something...
So why is it that you want to cater to snowflakes so badly? When you make a big shit over very innocuous words or very benign conversation, all you're going to end up doing is making even more people less comfortable overall, or worse, put people at odds with one another for no good reason.
Because of people like you, we're in a world now where HR departments advise employees to never ask people where they're from, because you'll make them feel like an outsider. So in other words, idle conversation risks mak
Re: (Score:3)
If you can't change your diction with the times you probably should start looking at retirement.
Younger people don't want to deal with the drama of some old guy who believes he is entitled to never change his behaviour around others since he was hired 20-30-40 years ago. Every single time I hear someone say they can't "act like themselves" the "actions" they are talking about are always demeaning of others. Why is that?
When I first started working in the late 1990's the Network Operation Center I worked a
Re: Lost for words (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in the middle of getting my open water diving certification, and we very frequently use a particular hand gesture that, as of only a few years ago, is well known to get people fired if it's used on land. Which is quite irksome because once you get in the habit of using it all the time underwater you start habitually using it on land as well.
Re: (Score:3)
Just hope no-one gets offended at you giving throat slitting signs while you're at 60 feet.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Insightful)
No, what I find pathetic is the way the PC crowd never understands that they're being manipulated and that every time they change their language, the people they're trying to appease come up with a new way to pretend to be offended.
First of all, has it not occurred to you that some people just don't care, and thus aren't the ones being manipulated? That it's the people - like you - who are up in arms and frustrated over word-purity being sullied that are being manipulated into a frothing rage?
Think about it. There's folks like me that think deprecating usage of the clinical word "retarded" outside a clinical setting has somewhere between negligible and minimal benefit but are willing to accept the word of people who work with people to whom that word applies. And then there are the folks who freaked the fuck out because OMGWTFPONIES. Of those two categories, one goes on with their lives virtually unchanged, except occasionally avoiding using a word. The other category goes through life enraged and motivated, believing the first category are their enemies and are lesser people and weak and out to steal your their freedoms.
Here's a related thought experiment for you: is anyone actually replacing "feedback" with "feedforward"? Take a look at the structure of the minimal blurb available from WSJ. "More companies are phasing out feedback that bosses give workers, and replacing it with “feedforward.”" More companies. Who are these more companies? How many of them are there? How does this reflect the rest of the world? Hmmmm. Doesn't this look an awful lot like the manipulative vagueness that Trump used to spew? "Democrats eat babies. That's what they're saying. That's what I've heard." They. This unnamed they are saying it. No idea if they are a pair of cracked-out homeless people on the street in California. No idea if they are a his kid and kid's wife, told to "repeat after me". Just... rhetoric used to stir up his audience.
Point is... if you're stirred up, the news is probably designed to stir you up. Sure, sure, there are exceptions like "crap, Russia just bombed the snot out of a Ukranian daycare," which is news designed to stir everyone up - and so it should. But this kind of... unimportant fluff that - even if it were 100% true and every English-speaking human being on the planet would forever more be unable to speak the word 'feedback' - is only targeting you.
You.
You are being manipulated. How about get pissed off that what amounts to the conservative traditionalist fundamentalist intolerant greedy ones are screwing with you? 'Cuz that's what's happening.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, they even mention the full name as "negative feedback". There is such a thing as "positive feedback" too.
Not to mention there is already a solid excellent name for feedforward already in use, it's called "education".
The word "feed" is offensive! (Score:2)
Re: Lost for words (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The stupidity of the corporate world is downstream of college stupidity. All those lovely MBA's and HR degrees infesting the corporate world with their petty idiocy.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not anxiety-inducing to call you a human resource, yes?
How about renaming Human Resources as Human Intrinsic Value, or HIV in short.
Re:Lost for words (Score:5, Insightful)
WSJ has a habit of exaggerating and frequently misrepresenting reality. Corporate HR has *always* tried to rebrand every aspect of management for optics.
The question is: has anyone ever actually, genuinely cared about their performance review feedback? You smile, you nod, you take whatever peanuts they throw your way, and every so often you leave and get more from someone else.
Re: (Score:2)
The question is: has anyone ever actually, genuinely cared about their performance review feedback? You smile, you nod, you take whatever peanuts they throw your way, and every so often you leave and get more from someone else.
I have been a contractor for 27 years, so I haven't gone through the review process for that long, but back between 1990-1996 when I was an employee, I actually paid attention to my reviews and tried to achieve the goals they put in there for me, and as a result, I received substantial raises. I mean, why would you NOT want to pay attention to a performance review that's on YOU?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Corporate HR has *always* tried to rebrand every aspect of management for optics.
They have to do something to justify their jobs.
The question is: has anyone ever actually, genuinely cared about their performance review feedback?
Never. Literally not once. The only valuable feedback I've ever gotten on a review was from a pencil-necked C-level ball-gargling nincompoop who had no business being in his job telling me "your performance did not meet expectations, and your score reflects that." The "value" was that it finally pushed me over the edge. I was at my new job within a month, and I thank that manager every day for that feedback. If he hadn't pulled that shit I may have been stu
Re: (Score:2)
The question is: has anyone ever actually, genuinely cared about their performance review feedback? You smile, you nod, you take whatever peanuts they throw your way, and every so often you leave and get more from someone else.
Honestly? No, not really.
If anything I did or didn't do was a problem, they'd have fired me already. My yearly reviews are just exercises where I pretend to look properly attentive and interested, nodding sagely and making (fake) notes on an empty Notepad page.
Then it's over, my manager and both sigh at another task/burden put to bed, and I go back to doing exactly what I was doing before the review. By the end of the day I won't even remember what it was we discussed.
Re: (Score:2)
They'll never figure out that "feedforward" and "feedback" are really the same, right?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So *this* is where John Gruber draws the line?
Where was he when they coined "let go", "downsizing", "empower", "Best Practice", etc?
Society is awash with euphemisms: "handicapped", "bathroom", "passed away", "make love", and almost any expression that includes the words "challenged", "differently", or "experiencing" :-)
Re: (Score:2)
You're the stupid twat who falls for culturewar bullshit from the WSJ.
Re: (Score:2)
I am sure they can be even more abysmally stupid that thins without even trying hard. These people are the masters of lying with language, overselling, giving a false impression, etc. You know, disingenuous scum.
Less anxiety for sure (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were to hear a higher-up say "feedforward", my first instinct would be to laugh derisively.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be pretty anxious if my boss randomly decided to manage via some random fad, presumably after neutering any of the details that might have made it work.
More Anxiety for Others (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Just think of the anorexics who are going to be triggered by the word "feed".
And the Luddites who'll be triggered by the word "forward".
suck it up and perform (Score:2)
Re: suck it up and perform (Score:3)
Most of the time, it is.
Think what's it's like to work with the guy for whom it isn't: shit doesn't get done, requests for corrections are met with moaping or the silent treatment all the while shit doesn't get done, etc etc.
Maybe you don't want to be Frank Grimes, but you don't want to be Homer Simpson either.
Re:suck it up and perform (Score:5, Insightful)
same shit (Score:2)
We don't have problems. We have opportunities for improvement.
Re: same shit (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It wasn't a mistake, it was a learning experience.
And we didn't fuck shit up, we found a sub-optimal way that had a non-positive impact.
To quote another Gruber (Score:3)
Really going downhill (Score:5, Funny)
The Onion is really going downhill. Their parodies should at least have some kernel of believability.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why "The Babylon Bee" had to make "notthebee.com".
I'm not sure it's possible.... (Score:5, Insightful)
...to miss the point this badly without expressly intending to do so.
"The idea is that 'feedforward' gives people less anxiety," the Journal's reporter said in a video interview. "It's a little bit gentler. When people hear 'feedback', they think immediately, 'What have I done wrong? What are the bad things my boss is going to tell me to fix?'"
The underlying question is whether the anxiety is warranted or not. If the feedback/feedfoward/perspectives is simply feedback ("You need to make sure you are meeting your deadlines, which you have done inconsistently but should work toward greater consistency" or "others on your team have indicated that your documentation is a bit hard to follow; perhaps it's worth having someone double check your documentation and see if you can make an additional revision so everyone benefits"), that's generally not the problem.
The real problem is that, at some point, everybody learns that HR is not your friend. If there is no distinction between "here's how we can improve on things" and "failure to resolve these matters will be grounds for termination", of course there's going to be anxiety when HR calls you into their office.
In the wake of the change, "we didn't get the richness of constructive criticism," says Solomon-Baum, who is now consulting and leading marketing for a new ballet company in Los Angeles. "It became a praise festival...."
I'm really in the wrong line of work if the person who thought this was a good idea gets paid more than I do. You want to know what someone *really* thinks, take away all possibility of repercussions. Anonymous feedback is about the closest a company can get to that, and while it certainly has the possibility of causing some uncomfortable situations as Sensitive Spencer tries to figure out who in the office described him as "deadweight", it at least give an outlet for the sort of statements that would get someone called to HR if made directly. Tie a name to it, and now all Sensitive Spencer has to do is have a nervous breakdown and say "Voyager529 is creating a toxic work environment for me!" and HR has triple the headache trying to sort it out...and do you think Sensitive Spencer is going to miss the opportunity to fire back during the next round of "feedforward"?
*OF COURSE* you're not getting honest responses if everyone in the office knows you did it! That's what you wanted, right?! People to not say "mean things", based entirely on the perception of the recipient rather than the intent of the sender?
Many younger employees entered the workforce while managers had loosened expectations on productivity and performance, and may have had less stringent grading in college amid remote classes, making the postpandemic adjustment more difficult.
No, it's that over the past decade, we, as a society, collectively, irrespective of generation, race, or gender, forgot how to deal with being uncomfortable, and let the 'block' button handle conflicts and letting an echo chamber be our source of validation. From Boomers to Gen Alpha I see this. Discomfort is to be avoided at all cost, rather than being experienced and dealt with and growing up. Yes, there are plenty of factors that go into a crappy performance review. Sometimes, yes, the HR person does take exception to you. Sometimes, yes, they're looking to fire you because you're too expensive and they want the paperwork to avoid a lawsuit...but for every one of those, there are a dozen other performance reviews reflecting genuine deficits, and while it's extremely difficult to receive that kind of feedback because it never feels good to be told 'you aren't good enough' (that feeling doesn't really go away), being an adult means taking your lumps, making the necessary changes, and moving forward. ...if some moron in HR believes that the solution to all of this is simply to change the term "feedback" to "feedforward", then they could not more effectively misunderstand the assignment if they tried.
Re: (Score:2)
When it comes down to it, the average person has the backbone of a jellyfish and would rather do what keeps their job safe than what is right.
HR is not paid by the employees, and if instructed to find a way to fuck you over because a manager wants you gone with the minimum possible expense... that sweet HR lady who helped you fill out all those forms will consult with legal and craft exactly the right kind of metaphorical knife to stick in your spleen.
When that's NOT what happens, it makes the news.
The endless quest (Score:5, Insightful)
Any word can be used as an insult
"Moron, imbecile, and idiot" were once medical terms, then they were turned into insults. So the word "retarded" was substituted. It got turned into an insult. Then they started using "special". It got turned into an insult. Eventually every word will be tried and turned into an insult. All of language will consist of nothing but insults
Welcome to the moronosphere
Re: (Score:2)
Brilliant!
How long does it take a word to become an insult after being introduced to a language?
Re:The endless quest (Score:4, Interesting)
The euphemism treadmill has been studied:
https://wstyler.ucsd.edu/posts... [ucsd.edu]
Basically, "retarded" was introduced around 1950 and was considered outdated by 1980.
Re: (Score:2)
Brilliant!
How long does it take a word to become an insult after being introduced to a language?
Almost instantly.
The problem isn't "retarded" versus "special". The problem is people who would use whatever new word is chosen as a pejorative. How they can be stopped is a big question.
And it isn't helped when the postmodernists delve into clownworld when insisting that "birthing people" be substituted for women, or that anyone other than some non-defined normal person be called "Neurodivergant".
So soon, we'll have to come up with new appropriate terms, and then new terms, then new terms, and on
Re: (Score:2)
How they can be stopped is a big question.
They can't... Pretty much every pejorative for stupidity originated as a medical term... Including the word stupid... Moron, Idiot, Imbecile - all terms originally came from psychiatry. People will use whatever words mean that in the modern lexicon as pejoratives as well - and usually its used to make fun of the people coming up with the new terms (deservedly so...)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a challenge: go forth and convince the gullible that capitalizing one's name in print is one of the bad isms.
Oh boy, let me introduce you to "Sovereign Citizens" and "Moorish Americans". They have a serious hard-on for names in all caps, especially on birth certs and any legal document or government paper. Five minutes of googling and you'll know all you need.
In short, they believe that using all caps snares you in some weird, nebulous legal trap that makes you a slave to the United States, which they claim is a corporation (and it is, but not in a commercial entity doing business sense).
Re: (Score:2)
Any term, if used by some bigot, will be an insult.
In the eternal words of George Carlin, if Eddie Murphy is using the word N...., that's not racist. Eddie Murphy is not a racist, he's a N.....
Re:The endless quest (Score:4, Interesting)
Any word can be used as an insult "Moron, imbecile, and idiot" were once medical terms, then they were turned into insults. So the word "retarded" was substituted. It got turned into an insult. Then they started using "special". It got turned into an insult. Eventually every word will be tried and turned into an insult. All of language will consist of nothing but insults
Welcome to the moronosphere
In an example of the moronosphere, since denial of biology is important, A woman is any person who says they are a woman.
Okay - now we have birthing people, I can hardly wait until that is an insult. Right offhand, "birthing people does not include sterile people once known as women, or post menopausal once birthing person, but now something else.
I will call anyone whatever they desire to be called, if they only let me know, and if that is important to them. But the overclassification urge of some folks would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad
But there is this biology tning that doesn't jibe with the postmodern demand to classify and label everything.
Neurodivergent is another new buzzword. I have a fair number of friends who are aspies. They just want to be called people, male or female. Even I am apparently neurodivergent. I'm not even sure what non-neurodivergent is supposed to mean.
Re:The endless quest (Score:5, Insightful)
This is complicated. Gender is not the same things as biological sex.
It was until very recently.
In related news ... (Score:4, Funny)
Browser makers will poll users on the future of the "Back" button. Proposed are:
a) Rename the "Back" button as "Forward". (Leaving the "Forward" button as-is.)
b) Remove the "Back" button and give the "Forward" button dual-use functionality.
Re:In related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, for the longest time I had to click "start" to shut down Windows, I get used to things being labeled backwards.
George Carlin (Score:3)
Why feed (Score:4, Funny)
Why "feed" instead of "withhold", since that's the goal of HR. Withholdforward doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Another spin of the euphemism treadmill (Score:5, Interesting)
This happens all the time. A word or phrase acquires negative connotations, so people find a euphemism that lacks those connotations and use it to avoid the negativism. But, of course, the reason the original word or phrase acquired the negative connotations generally has nothing to do with the word or phrase, but inherent negativity in the concept described. So, the new "baggage-free" euphemism quickly acquires the same baggage as the old term, and in a few years someone gets the bright idea to replace it.
Steven Pinker calls this the "euphemism treadmill", which is an apt description.
Tyranny of the weak (Score:2)
The problem at the base of this whole thing is not the completely innocent word "feedback".
The problem is a generation of people who cannot handle anything but praise.
While we're at it (Score:5, Funny)
There's so much more that still needs to be done.
"man" pages need to be replaced with "person" pages. /usr/bin/yes gets a companion program /usr/bin/no to distance our culture from the idea that any reply must of course be in the positive. /usr/bin/no means /usr/bin/no. Symlinking to /usr/bin/yes is strictly prohibited. /usr/bin/touch needs to be removed. It has been abused way too often, especially by privileged users.
"cat" needs to be renamed "domestic_animal" to avoid anxiety among owners of non-feline pets.
And of course,
The -f (force) switch has to be removed from every program to avoid anxiety attacks from users. Or programs.
"more" is finally removed and you will use the way more environmentally acceptable "less".
Likewise, LaTeX needs to be replaced by biodegradable KleeNeX
"kill" is likewise anxiety-inducing and needs to be renamed "euthanize"
"history" needs to be rewritten and replaced by "herstory"
The abort() function should much more sensibly be called choice()
"daemons" may cause anxiety in religious users and are henceforth to be referred to as "spiritual guides"
Likewise "icons" may no longer be used to avoid upsetting iconoclasts and iconolaters. Call them "revered apparitions" now, please.
White on black text, which was considered "normal video" until now is now to be called "oppressive video", black on white is now "progressive text".
That would be a start, I'd say. Feel free to add.
Re: (Score:3)
We can't rename "man" pages as "person" as man is short for manual so therefore person would be short for personal and the pages
Re: (Score:3)
But we cannot call it "pub", that could cause anxiety in recovering alcoholics!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
"nice" has to be removed, it's been abused way, way too many time by privileged users to tell others that they need to be "nice" and let them have even more resources than they already had.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say you've achieved max woke, but achievement is racist now because some white dude did that once.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it that you right-wing nuts have to make up imaginary things to complain about? Can't find anything in the real world to get worked up about?
Keep beating on that strawman. You look real tough.
Re: (Score:2)
I read that in George Carlin's voice.
I was going to (Score:3)
Doens't change the understanding (Score:2)
The endless problem with Newspeak of all forms, is that even if you change the word everyone understands what you really mean was what the old forbidden word meant.
So if there's any anxiety involved it is around the situation, not whatever term you use for it.
People will always be a little on edge when the get a message that is the equivalent of "we need to talk" with scant detail as to the subject...
Euphemisms (Score:2)
This is simply a continuation of a long ongoing trend. To begin to get an idea of it, watch this old video of a George Carlin rant on euphemisms https://youtube.com/watch?v=is... [youtube.com]
More like FeedBS .. (Score:2)
it's all on the context (Score:2)
Feedback has the connotation and anxiety it has because people are worried about getting f****** fired.
If this story isn't a parody, then in 3 years we'll be reading about how interns are worried about their feedforeward meetings, because criticism is criticism.
Who is pushing for this? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is the same bullshit marketing that gave us "millennials". "Millennials" don't actually exist. It's a category made up by bored consultants looking for more ways to make money by providing useless "advice".
Don't blame the younger generations for this. This is totally the work of pop-sociology grifters.
They're not children (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya know what (Score:2)
Every time management do some malicious compliance shit like this where they misinterpret the advice they've been given that would otherwise help the running of businesses so completely they invent a new form of abuse, yall act like it's the first time ever.
This is, yes, in part, the process of euphemism and dysphemism, a known process of linguistic evolution. Calm down, call them out on it if you don't think it will be effective and care about their outcomes, or let them make the mistake and suffer for it
Wet the bed, play with fire, can't take feedback.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem might be raising people to be fragile narcissists.
We owe it all to most modern day overpriced (in the US) Universities (adult day care centers) ... and "participation trophies" ... and "helicopter parenting" have given us.
An HR manager... (Score:2)
For the record, there's 3 main parts of effective direction:
"feed up": Set expectations & give clear ideas of what the tasks/responsibilities are or better still model what success looks like;
feedback: Inform trainees/students how well they're performing their tasks/responsibilities/how successful they've been (preferably in relation to models of success);
"feed for
Feedback and feedforward are technical terms (Score:2)
Why are people here getting so upset?? (Score:2)
This is just another in a long line of generational division clickbait articles.
I refuse. (Score:2)
Enough already.
Orwellian double plus good newspeak (Score:2)
This recent trend to brainwash using holy cleansing into an era of ideological newspeak is so Orwellian, it is scary. And they are not even hiding it, they are openly presenting it as a positive brainwashing in so many words because no evil can happen if only we eradicate all those evil words.
Re: (Score:2)
New euphemisms are great. (Score:2)
It never ceases to amaze me (Score:3)
This is bullsh*t. (Score:2)
Oh, wait, I can't say that. It might be offensive to cattle that identify as something else.
"Back" indicates the information flow direction. (Score:2)
You feed information back into a process that just ran to make adjustments for the next iteration.
You feed information forward from one process to another. We already have this taken care of in the form of a workflow.
Feedback is exactly the right term to use and changing it to use a term that implies a different thing adds confusion, not clarity.
And when they learn what the word means ... (Score:2)
"The idea is that 'feedforward' gives people less anxiety," the Journal's reporter said in a video interview. "It's a little bit gentler. When people hear 'feedback', they think immediately, 'What have I done wrong? What are the bad things my boss is going to tell me to fix?'"
They only feel less anxiety because they don't know what the hell the word means. Once they learn what it means, the same as "feedback", they will fell the same anxiety.
What fucking idiots came up with this? Is that coming from a past April Fools Day article?
I kinda like "perspectives"... (Score:2)
We Aren't Firing You (Score:2)
That's nice (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
corp0rAte
you forgot the link to goatse!
Re: (Score:3)
This shit is why I will quit a job before I work in an office.
Good news!
The leadership advisory group has reviewed recent feed-forward from our team associate friends. From here on we will refer to our gathering place as the on-nice.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Re: (Score:2)
No, there is attempt to wussify the language so people can avoid being adults dealing with reality.