Dear Bob ... We're going into our annual benefits sign-up period and we're being told, for the second year in a row, to make "smart choices." To me the clear implication is that at least some of us have been making "dumb choices" in the past. We aren't, however, told what those dumb choices were, nor what would constitute smart choices for our position in life (single/married, children/no children, old/young, he Dear Bob …We’re going into our annual benefits sign-up period and we’re being told, for the second year in a row, to make “smart choices.” To me the clear implication is that at least some of us have been making “dumb choices” in the past. We aren’t, however, told what those dumb choices were, nor what would constitute smart choices for our position in life (single/married, children/no children, old/young, healthy/sick).I just talked to our local HR representative who is equally fed up with the way corporate HR communicates with us. Not that it matters. Your thoughts?– Making ChoicesDear Choosing … My thoughts pretty much mirror yours. It’s bad enough when people who aren’t paid to be thoughtful communicators carelessly make insulting statements because they don’t stop to think what their words mean.And it happens all the time. How often has someone said to you, “If you stop to think about it …” Huh – I thought I already had stopped to think about it, more deeply than the person who said it, as a matter of fact.Then there’s the ever-popular “work smarter, not harder,” (published as ManagementSpeak for “Work harder,” several years ago), as if otherwise you’d come to work every day trying your best to do your work as stupidly as possible. To pick two examples out of zillions. As I say, it’s bad enough when it’s casual conversation. When it’s a (supposedly) carefully crafted message from a professional communicator you have to wonder.What’s especially unfortunate about this is that it would cost relatively little for HR to provide an FAQ on your company intranet to provide some rules of thumb to help employees with their financial planning, so the rephrased statement would be meaningful instead of just insulting.What might such a statement look like? “Take some time to review the choices you made last year – the world has changed and your situation might have changed as well. We’ve provided an FAQ to help you think through some of the factors important in making benefits decisions,” gets the point across without suggesting the company has hired a bunch of fools. So here’s a question: What’s stopping your local HR representative from doing exactly this, with our without central HR’s support?– Bob Technology Industry