I’ve already covered that. The phrase “in my home” is different than “in my hotel”. That’s context.
I have one for you:
If the hotel manager says, “Mr. Jones is a guest in our hotel,” you and every other English speaking person understand that to mean Mr. Jones is paying to stay there. Do you agree?
Yes, but only because it has become corporate speak. Just like how I understand my boss if he says “right sizing.” Because it is used and we understand it doesn’t make it less full of shit than it really is.
It hasn’t become. It has always been. The word was used in that manner before the word “hotel” even existed. That’s the whole point, here. This isn’t an example of a corporation changing the meaning of a word. They’ve just been using the same word for hundreds of years to mean what it’s always meant from the beginning. There’s no time in history when hotels did not call people “guests”. For something to be “corporate speech”, then there would have to be some other word used previously. They’ve never used the word “customer” to refer to their guests. Ever.
I and others have already replied, yes, we disagree with that statement. If you make a point of saying “it is my MIL and she is staying in my home”, both of those word choices suggest she’s not paying, because she’s family to someone in your home. The word guest doesn’t even need to enter into it.
By contrast, I can’t think of a single situation in which I really need to know if a person is paying to stay, but I have nothing to go on but the presence of the word “guest” or “customer”. As a hotel worker I have no real need to know that, and ways to figure it out if I do.
If I’m housekeeping staff, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is a guest for my purposes.
If I’m a bartender, it does matter, but all I have to ask is “what room shall I charge this to?” The room is the customer. The person is a guest.
If I’m the front desk clerk, it doesn’t matter. I know as soon as the person says “I’d like to check out of my room” that they were a paying guest, and when I swipe their card, they’re now a departing guest.
Someone won a free room in an Instagram influencer challenge? They’re not paying a dime, yet they’re entitled to all the paying-customer amenities. Guest, or not? Again, as hotel staff, I don’t actually need to know that information.
Summary: Every hotel worker who needs to differentiate paying guests from non-paying guests already has easy, contextual ways to know what’s expected. Every hotel guest knows who’s paying and who isn’t paying. The knowledge is readily available without having to browbeat people into definitely using the #1 dictionary definition of common usage and definitely not the #2A definition of another common usage.
To look at the bigger picture… every single word and spelling that you’re using now is the product of hundreds of years of people using the wrong word, culminating in a small team of lexicologists throwing up their hands and saying “fuck it, I guess it means something different now.” Every single word. That’s just how languages evolve.
“I’m going to have to give you a coaching.” I first heard this on a Karen/Bad Manager story (there was one of each, not the same person), then later on other manager stories. I’m not sure what it entails, but I’m sure it’s not good.
I’m just going to add “drill down”. You are looking at a subset of the data. There is no drilling involved.
I will also second the substitution of client for patient and care provider for doctor, nurse etc.
My local hospital is particularly bad at corporate speak. From their website:
The community health needs assessments were used as the foundation for the hospital implementation strategies to address the priority needs identified.
I actually like it quite a bit though I’m often surprised that I do. Almost every single day I get to help an employee, usually by answering questions about policy or their benefits, I make sure we’re in compliance with various state and federal laws/regulations, I sometimes get to do a little recruiting (which is usually fun), and from week-to-week and month-to-month there’s always something new happening. But it helps that I work for a decent company that treats its employees well.
Not that we’re perfect of course. There are some individuals I do not like to deal with and they don’t much like me either. I am often the guy who has to say no as I am a stickler for following policy. If we need to change policy, let’s talk about changing it. But we’re not going to ignore it just because you find it convenient. And some employees can be a headache.
They might be taken aback because we don’t refer to you as a resource. We typically refer to employees as employees. Remember, Human Resources is also a place for you to come for assistance with questions about your benefits, payroll, etc. etc. It’s a resource for employees.
So, they provide such medical services as the people in their town need most, as determined by surveys.
And on the ongoing argument, yeah, “corporate speak” or buzzwording is something different from a long-established naturally-evolved trope or euphemism even if it were a silly or confusing one.
“Welcome m’sieur. Sit yourself down.
And meet the best innkeeper in town.
As for the rest. All of them crooks.
Rooking their guests, and cooking the books.”
It’s been building steadily over time, but it’s getting to the point of my snarling behind closed lips when I hear or read “Team Member” in all the company communications to us. As if the ( hidebound and rigid ) hierarchy doesn’t exist.
“Employee” or “Co-worker” is just fine, thank you. Somehow the PR department of fluffery thinks these terms to coarse. A bit ironic from the same people who are just fine with the term “human resources”.
Using the word “ping” when someone says they’re going to contact you, e.g. “I’ll ping you when I get there.”
That is not my experience at all. HR is there to protect the employer. I never have had any useful resources from HR. As Dogbert says, “You can’t spell ‘hurt’ without HR.”
As a short form for “SMS text message” it’ seems OK. And it’s is more pronounceable that “txt”.
IMO the term is mostly based on the noise most phones made (make?) when an SMS is received: a single chime note vaguely akin to a WWII submarine movie sonar “ping”.
But if somebody tells me they’ll ping later then sends an email or calls via voice I’ll be confused.
Modding here: Start a new thread over the proper use of “guest”, but stop clogging this up.
Not modding.
You’re call is important to use [please listen to shitty music for the next three hours.]
This happened when I was looking for a recipe for panettone. The recipe was hidden behind an unremovable request for my email address that included: “We will not send any spam.” If I want it you have to give me a reason to want it. If I don’t want it, it is, by definition, spam. I didn’t do it.
I hired a talented Financial Analyst straight out of college. He’s been in a co-op program and had great Excel skills for his experience level but not much in the way of industry or organizational knowledge course.
The Sales Director asked him to build a “Dashboard” of the metrics that were important to him. The kid built a rendition of the metrics in the form of an instrument cluster like an automobile or airplane dashboard. Dials, gauges, odometer-type displays. Amazing. Everyone thought he was being cute. He was actually being very literal. He had no idea that a “dashboard” meant some generic combination of charts and tables.
This was mid 1990s. Dashboard was a newish term back then.
My first name is “ABC” my last name is “DEF” and my email address is Q@W.E. That almost always works. When it does not, try Q@W.com instead.
I used that maneuver this very morning to access the free Wi-Fi in the Atlanta airport.
I don’t use drill down to mean a subset of data, but to examine data that underlies some result. So if I get my area’s budget report, and one line item is hospitality and it’ll be $1500 for the month. If I want to see all the individual expenses, I’ll ask my admin to “drill down” under hospitality to get all the individual purchases that ended up with the total in that category.
It’s a more granular and closer look at the data. I could imagine asking folks to drill down into our budget to find areas to cut spending, but then it’s still not about a subset of the data, but a closer look at assumptions etc.