Living in America, you can't help but notice that some of the big box retailers make it their policy to refer to their employees, as their associates, so when you are in Home Depot or Wal-Mart or some other similar retailer, you will invariably hear at some point, the verbal callout for an associate to help a customer or guest with something or other. One would like to think that an associate working within an organization would actually mean something that signifies that this person is a true colleague within the work environment, whose voice or work assignments would be looked upon as worthy of respect and consideration. Unfortunately, that often is not the case, and fundamentally within organizations in which all of the lower level employees are designed as associates, is most definitely not the case.
In point of fact, for whatever reason, the company doing the hiring has made a policy decision that the semantics of calling their employees, by the name of associate, helps to sell the illusion that the person employed by these retailers is really an important component within the organization, when in actuality, they are nothing more than pawns to be pushed around the chessboard for the greater good of the organization itself.
The truth is, as Shakespeare tells us: "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;" and that which we call by names masking the true nature of the work at hand, smell just as rotten as they always have. These so-called associates at Wal-Mart often make a wage of just $9 or $10/hour, pointedly signifying that any association that they have with management must be of the traditional employer/employee relationship and hardly one in which the associate has even a marginal place at the table.
The thing is that there isn't anything wrong with being an employee of a given company, in fact, there is a lot to be said about being gainfully employed and working for a living, no matter the title or job position, as there is dignity in doing a job well and being respected and being paid for just that. While there are plenty of good paying jobs in America, there are also in this service-based economy a lot of jobs that don't pay well and don't have a lot of prestige associated with them. However, these jobs are a way to earn money, to develop responsibility as well as to stay busy and active, with perhaps windows of opportunity for advancement and promotion.
These big multi-national corporations that employ so many people have an inherent obligation to provide a fair deal to their employees, and that deal necessitates true candor and honesty. Therefore, to call a man, something that he is not, is wrong, it is a lie, and it is not becoming of any corporation or its leadership. In truth, companies hire people, these people hired are correctly known as employees, most of them upon being hired are not associates, because they are not at that time merited and valued members of the organization, and until such time that they become so, it is wrong to falsely label them as such.