To be enraged by the over-use of the word "role" to mean "job"?

[Thepeopleversuswork]

Top corporate bollocks-speak peeve at the moment. The way its bled into human speak is so totally pervasive that sensible people have started doing it and drives me mad. I don't mind seeing this on a CV or a LinkedIn post but people use it over drinks with their mates.

I've heard in the last week: "my previous role was exhausting so I agreed to cut hours". "I went for a role". It sounds as if everyone is auditioning to play Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady, even if they actually went for a job on the tills at Sainsbury.

It's not a snob thing either. Being CEO is no more or a "role" than being a toilet cleaner.

Can we just get back to your jobs please?

I'm not really sure it's your role to comment? 😬

I take your point but it doesn’t bother me to be honest. Language changes.

Traditionally, volunteers have roles and staff have posts/jobs

In fairness, I'd make sure my own use of English was pretty damn perfect before I started complaining about a perfectly good word used in the correct context.

Just sayin'

👏😆

What’s your position on position to mean position job?

@PAFMO

Hmmm... I take the correct English comment on the chin, but I'm not sure that this disqualifies me from having a position on the use of language. If that test was applied 50% of all the posts on here would be deleted.

My problem with it is that its a bit like exam grade inflation. It's an attempt to make everyone feel their job is worthwhile. But like a lot of these things it has the opposite effect, it dilutes the impact of all titles by making them meaningless.

A "role" to me suggests something with pivotal, strategic importance to an organisation. A job is an arrangement where someone does tasks for money. Most jobs are not "roles", they are jobs. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, but calling it a "role" doesn't glorify it, it just makes it sound ridiculous.

Isn't it just workforce planning shorthand for "job role" though? And as strategic workforce planning has become more important I'm companies for the last decade, it has crept into common parlance?

My colleague does swp and she hates it when someone just uses "job", to her that could refer to title, role, function or a grouping within the organisation.

As far as corporate wank speak goes, this is not one I'm worried about

My job is working at xxxxxx

My role there is xxxxxx

I agree OP, and I cite in addition the gut-wrenching use of "resource" to mean "person". Here is some bollocks I received recently -

Leadership is looking for an experienced International recruiting resource from a design perspective who can guide us through the many decisions we will face in the coming days and weeks.
This resource would work with the international team members and raise both proposals for best practices and provide trusted advice during the process.

My problem with it is that its a bit like exam grade inflation. It's an attempt to make everyone feel their job is worthwhile. But like a lot of these things it has the opposite effect, it dilutes the impact of all titles by making them meaningless.

I agree about the effect of this - but I am not sure if I agree about the motivation. One place I worked they tried to make everyone call the Canteen the "Staff Restaurant" as if that magically conferred some degree of difference.

This shit is the same. I have a job. I go to work and do it, my job. It's that simple. Since my job doesn't involving wonking about with organisational structures, headcounts, succession planning etc, I can call my job what it is - my job. It's that easy.

There is a valid distinction to be made. But you hear "role" as a catch-all for everything. I've heard people say: "I'm just doing my role", or "my role is 9 to 5". Which is meaningless.

Job: e.g. Customer service assistant
Role: the function (s) you perform within that job, e.g. dealing with customer enquiries, processing orders, creating and sending invoices.

In that sense, a role or roles can be exhausting, but I'd suggest you apply for a new job, rather than a new role.

Firstly, you're massively overthinking this.

Secondly, you're projecting your own inferences on to everyone else. Just because you think 'role' implies something that 'job' doesn't, that doesn't mean it has that implication for everyone (or even most people).

Thirdly, you're being an appalling snob about the value of the work people do. For the last 20 years I've worked in what you would deign to call 'roles''. Previously I worked in what you would call 'jobs'. The organisations that employed me would not have functioned adequately without my work in either kind of position and I treated them with the same degree of effort and professionalism.

Stop fretting about the lower ranks getting ideas above their station, love, and worry about something that actually matters.

😁

I think the motivation is wrapped up in this general sense people seem to have in our society that the more pompous you sound and the more jargon you use in day-to-day life the more intelligence you will project. When in fact generally the reverse is true.

So whoever decided to call your canteen the "Staff Restaurant" probably had some vague, non-specific feeling that a "restaurant" sounded posher than a "canteen" and took it from there. I think "role" is the same, really. People just think it sounds posher.

@10HailMarys

you're being an appalling snob about the value of the work people do

I don't think that's either true of fair. I've said I don't see being CEO as any more of a "role" than being a cleaner. It's meaningless in both cases. I just dislike language being corrupted by corporate nonsense.

I can't agree. I work in a large department and we have about 25 people who have the same job title. However their roles vary, some do one part of the process others do a different part and their busy periods vary over the year. Each role is distinct and requires specific knowledge. They all come under the title and pay grade of XXX Administrator though.

I do hate Resource to mean person though

the more pompous you sound and the more jargon you use in day-to-day life the more intelligence you will project.
I certainly agree that this is rife.

Using 'roll' to mean job infuriates me even more, I've just has an email with that in.

But the comment you've cited : "my previous role was exhausting so I agreed to cut hours" makes sense and is more appropriate than 'job' as presumably they haven't changed job, just the scope of their role within that job.

You're talking rubbish here, sorry. "Role" is an entirely appropriate word being, for the most part, used correctly. It allows us to distinguish between a logical place separate the function and responsibilities that a company requires of someone from the actual person fulfilling those responsibilities and their terms of employment. If my company decided to can the product I'm working on, for example, they'd move me to work on a different one; my role would cease to exist, but I'd keep my job. If I quit my job, on the other hand, the role would continue to exist, unfilled until they replaced me.

It's an entirely pedestrian word and you're ascribing a pomposity to it that nobody else perceives it to have.

Aw, smeg, I started writing something else but then changed my mind and have ended up with some nonsense in there. Just ignore the words "distinguish between a logical place" and hopefully the sentence then makes sense :D

Can someone explain what's meant by the seemingly in-words 'beautifully curated', outside the sphere of museums etc.?

I loathe wanky corporate-speak, but I hadn't really thought about this one. You're right that 'job' and 'role' aren't (or shouldn't be) synonymous, but tbh I'm really not sure that 'role' has taken over because of a desire to make jobs themselves sound fancier or more important (though I suppose there could be an element of that). I suspect it's more a case of the speaker trying to make themselves sound fancier and more important. A bit like saying 'myself' instead of 'me' <shudder>.

Or it's simply that the two words have been conflated because what's meant by 'your job' and 'what you're responsible for doing as part of your job' have quite a lit of overlap.