Comment by munificent 2 days ago
I know this really bugs some people but every tech company these days has a demonym for its employees.
It doesn't mean that employees have some cultlike adoration for the company. It's just very convenient inside the company to have a single short word to refer to all employees of the business.
I checked my list, and the fact that employees of Automattic are called "Automatticians" did not make my list of things to be outraged about. Maybe next week.
Pointing out the error in your claim implied nothing about outrage.
"Employee" is ambiguous because it doesn't convey which business someone is an employee of. A company-specific demonym is short and precise.
> It doesn't mean that employees have some cultlike adoration for the company
No, but it does mean that the company wishes that employees had some cult like adoration. The line between proud of the company one works for and being cult like is not rigid, and moves depending on the company
I've never taken it as wish that employees have some cult like adoration, but as a team building exercise. I don't like it, it's cringe, but it's nothing worse than a bit of meaningless cringe. I have heard the theory of the fine line between a CEO and a cult leader, but I've never worked at a company that came anywhere near that fine line. Every CEO I've worked with has known that we're there due to a mutually beneficial agreement.
I get it, it's just kind of a meme at this point after a couple years of these boilerplate RIF announcements. Cmd-F for "difficult decision" + whatever the demonym is and you're basically guaranteed hits.
> a single short word
> “Automattician”
The word you’re looking for is employee.