# Problems are now issues

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-are-now-issues/505559>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 6, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-are-now-issues/505559 "2009-08-06T18:35:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-are-now-issues/505559/21 "2009-08-07T20:25:59Z")

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> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> When I stocked shelves at K-Mart, I was definitely an “associate”, never an “employee”. Used correctly, associate should employ someone entering a partnership, so in cases like mine it was misleading. As for your claim that everybody knows where they stand in the corporate hierarchy, that’s true, but the language still matters. That was one them that George Orwell hammered on in _1984_. On the surface, nobody was fooled by the government’s language. Below the surface, that language gradually eroded important distinctions and weakened convictions. The same happens in real life. Why is the government department that attacks other countries called the “Department of Defense”? Because if people hear it often enough, it pushes them towards associating America’s military offenses with national defense.

Glad you mentioned Orwell, who wrote about this before he wrote 1984, well over 60 years ago.  
Associates are almost passe - it is team members now.  
When I was at AT&T they stopped using managers and started using supporters. Someone named to lead a division was named to support it. They also started drawing the org chart top down, with Bullet Bob Allen on the bottom and customers on the top. Which led a guy who worked for me (sorry, I supported him) say that an incompetent manager wasn’t fired, he was promoted to customer.

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**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-are-now-issues/505559/22 "2009-08-07T21:22:25Z")

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In the 70s we used to call them “hang-ups”

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