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Comment by Dan_Sylveste | Hacker News Reader

What's with this seemingly-new use of 'staffers' instead of 'personnel' or 'staff?'

'Staffers' to me always meant personnel in a political context, i.e. White House Staffers or, in a commercial context, recruiters, i.e. people responsible for providing staff.

Does anyone else concur? I did check with the dictionary which is telling me that 'staffers' is a synonym for 'staff' but... I've not seen it used that way commonly until very recently.

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Aren't staffers the ones who work in hiring, talent acquisition, etc?

Yes, to me 'staffer' means 'recruiter' as in, a person responsible for providing staff.

In the context of a political organisation it is used to mean 'team members' (because they're not always formally employed staff) but I've not encountered it being used that way to refer to staff/consultants employed by a private company, hence my questioning.

In the North American context, a "staffer" is a member of staff of an organization, especially of a newspaper. I think reporters are using staffer because that's what they call employees at their organizations, even though the organizations they talk about doesn't use that nomenclature.

You will never beee president

So that's one less thing to worry about, one less thing to worry about

I imagine that song from Hamilton plays on Zuck’s bidet

You think they're using the term specifically because of its political-staff connotations? Interesting...

he had some delusional political aspirations before so I could see him trying to internalize it

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