Recently I wrote that I wanted a certain responsibility because it would be a challenge. I meant it as the fourth definition in Dictionary.com: "A test of one's abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking: a career that offers a challenge." To me attacking a "challenge" is very positive. However, my colleague took it to mean that it might be too hard of an undertaking for me. Therefore, I changed the wording to something like, "I'd appreciate the opportunity."

How do you see the word "challenge?" If you see something as a challenge, is it something you can accomplish or not? Do you see it as positive, or do you see it as something so hard that you'd never be able to do it?

I think the word is fine with your intended usage.

However I do believe that words like "challenge" and "opportunity" have become overused in business to the point where they are in danger of losing their meanings.

If my boss suggests that something will be a "challenge" for me, the meaning I take from that is that everybody else has been offered the job and turned it down because it's impossible. However if I ask someone else to do a job and they say that it will be a challenge I take from that the idea that they'll give it a go but it's my fault rather than theirs if they fail.

As for an "opportunity" that's like a "challenge" but ten times worse.

For reasons unknown to me, "challenged" has become the politically correct way to describe stupidity. One is no longer an idiot, one is now "mentally challenged," so maybe your reader was - umm - challenged by your clear meaning.

Yes, challenged has become an all-purpose euphemism to describe any shortcoming. Short people are vertically challanged, fat people are weight challenged, and disabled people are physically challenged or differently abled. Sometimes the mentally challenged are exceptional children. Then there's impaired. People who are deaf or hard-of-hearing are hearing impaired while blind people are sight impaired.

Tinman

I have a certification from the State of Oregon that I'm disabled due to a brain injury. I got it BEFORE I became "cognitively challenged!"

Bob, what word would you recommend if you dislike both challenge and opportunity?

How about neither. Why not just say "this is the job, it's not easy or pleasant but this is it".

If challenge and opportunity were being used in their proper meanings I'd be all for them but they are, in the world of employment, all too often just a transparent attempt to put a positive spin on a negative situation.

In this instance, I had seen the job being offered as a wonderful professional opportunity. While I certainly am open to your views on the word, you haven't persuaded me yet. It was the opportunity I had wanted, not a job.

When change is inevitabel, is it better to look at it as a challenge to be met or a problem to be dealt with? Only a subtle difference but a quite different implication about action.

Words can be very important tools in modifying attitude.

For a long time the "Objective" section of my résumé stated that I was seeking "A challenging position in..." It was an ultimately unsuccessful piece of work but not, i think, because anyone thought I was incapable or looking for arguments. No, the natural and obvious meaning, in this context, is that I was looking for something stimulating instead. And I'm also struggling now to imagine any business context where a similarly desirable "challenge" could be misunderstood. Kalleh, were you standing at ten paces when you recited your request? Or was it in written form, only to be munged by your corporate email server, stripped of tone and left bare for arbitrary interpretation? The latter process is well documented and often gives rise to misunderstandings, even of very simple english expressions.

More to the point: In the business context nobody would ask in all seriousness for a task he *knew* he couldn't complete, so I also struggle to see how anyone could think you were requesting an insurmountable task.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: braket,

quote:

Kalleh, were you standing at ten paces when you recited your request? Or was it in written form, only to be munged by your corporate email server, stripped of tone and left bare for arbitrary interpretation? The latter process is well documented and often gives rise to misunderstandings, even of very simple english expressions.

It was written the old-fashioned way...on paper, and it was sent through the mail. I hadn't heard of munged before and had to look it up. It means to destroy accidentally or sometimes maliciously?

Nice to see you again, Bracket.

To munge.