are new hires really being referred to somethings now?

Chinese lesson one: don't call someone a "thing".¹

Chinese lesson two: really don't call them "not a thing".

¹: Also it's still my favourite, uh, thing that the word for a "thing" is, literally, an "east-west".

Is the lesson for native-chinese-speakers about speaking English? If so, interesting, I haven't actually seen this (presumably common?) oopsie before. It also hadn't occurred to me how crushing of an insult it is, but damn yeah it sure is.

No, it's a Chinese lesson.

A "thing" or "stuff" in Chinese is 东西 (dōngxi). That's literally "east-west" if you pick the individual characters apart. That's what the footnote refers to.

Calling somebody 不是个东西 (bùshì ge dōngxī) means something along the lines of being good for nothing, i.e. an insult. Translating it literally, it would be calling somebody "not a thing".

Which lines up fine with "that's not a thing" in the sense of "that's irrelevant".

Saying someone is irrelevant is likely an insult, also in English.

That's a pronoun I haven't seen yet

Honestly it's a way more accurate reflection of how managers see employees

They don't have employees, they have "resources".

:feels:

?? Isn't feeling the employees an HR violation?

Only if the employee decides they were harassed. This was a "loophole" in a harassment training package a former employer used. Basically if you were of an ilk that will always be believed by HR you get a blank check on what to consider harassment. A classic some are more equal than others scenario.

Seems like you can read this 2 ways, the additional way being allowing workplace relationships that have a touching component to it. Regardless of how appropriate that is at work.

Well, in Germany we would say:

"Tauch' deinen Füller nie in Firmentinte."

That's a very important advice!

"Never dip your fountain pen in company ink."

Poetic

I guess it depends on how intensive you "feel" them.

Nihilist, pronouns something/whatever.

A few people are using it/its (like crimew, the hacker who did the no fly list thing), and I think they often prefer this sort of construction

That seems mildly insulting. At that point you might just say "attention to all fairy things"

The corp I work for and their clients uses "body lending" as a term. Why would we leave only suits to have some fun with dystopian wording ?

Not the corp in question but here is another one: https://www.thewealthmosaic.com/vendors/geissbuhler-weber-pa...