I used to work for a small business and I decided I would have to quit one day when my boss said, on the phone to a client, "yes, I've got a resource for that".
There were four of us.
Literally nothing about the word "resource" has negative connotations for me. Resources are finite and precious. They are protected and important.
Sometimes they are exploited and undervalued, sure. What isn't? Certainly not humans or employees.
Every project requires resources. Some of them are human. It's just a category.
Would you be less bothered if he said "I've got a human for that"? Or "I've got a worker for that"? "The staff to handle that need is available"?
I don't use the word, and the first time I heard it, I thought it was a little impersonal. But then I thought about it more, and I just don't understand the strength of reaction.
It might help that, in general, my goal is not to be seen as a living human being with real human complexity and needs and desires, at work.
"I've got a worker" is still somewhat dehumanising. "I have the staff for that" is somewhat less dehumanising.
But, for example, "yes we have someone here that can work on this with you" is so obviously less dehumanising.
I find it surprising that people would ever be confused about this. Perhaps it is because I am British and that sort of language is impolite, rude and arrogant. Or perhaps it is rejection-sensitive dysphoria (a real problem for me) making me sensitive to descriptions of myself and people I care about that reduce us to interchangeable allocatable units.
But again, the basic thing here is: there were four of us. Only one of us was ever going to do that job because there were four of us and we had four different jobs. So why ever lurch towards the language of interchangeability, in earshot.
Four people in a small business cannot really ever be a "category". And you should never use a word for a person that can also be used for a photocopier or a dictionary. A person can be resourceful; they are never a resource.
It's simple dehumanization. It's not outlandish or anything, it's just really easy to notice. And the sophistry to try make them equivalent terms is also easy to notice.
For a business to need resources it means a category of stuff that can include people, tools, raw materials, etc... Using the name of a category to mean one thing inside it instead of explicitly naming that one thing is concealment. Just like how I might say "fertilizer" instead of "cow shit."
The better question is why we started concealing it. Why are we so sensitive about the words person, employee, or personnel?
Hahaha, I got hit with that, too, also working for a small company. Luckily it was the client who called me "a resource", not someone from my company, but good lord what a way that is to talk about human beings.
