Apparently this is everywhere now — signs in stores like KMart referring to its clientete as ‘Consumers’ and not ‘Customers’. Contemptible!
This is even worse than my personal beef concerning trains. I’m old enough to remember when we were ‘passengers’, with platform announcements beginning ‘Attention passengers’. Some time over the decades this changed to ‘customers’ — why?
Why? Because calling us ‘customers’ gives them permission to call themselves ‘businesses’, run by themselves as ‘CEOs’.
This ‘government departments are businesses’ nonsense has to end. Government departments are not businesses. They are there to serve the people. Revenues made should be ploughed back into a) reduced prices for all, and b) to improve existing services.
Revenues made should not fund multi-million dollar ‘CEO’ (read: head bureaucrat) salaries and kickbacks to their cronies!
Just. Plain. Fed. Up!