Stereotypes

A Frenchman, a Russian, and a Scandinavian Walk Into a Bar

This Arab/Israeli and male/female dispute (see below) has inspired me to engage in some entertaining rounds of stereotyping. I've been reading Megan McArdle's several pieces on the issue whether FICO scores are good predictors of employee performance and whether, if not, employers should be banned from using them to assess job applicants. (My view, naturally, is that the issue is for the employer to decide, just as would be the case with astrological charts. If the FICO scores aren't good predictors, the employer will miss out on good employees and will suffer in competition with employers who use better predictive tools.)

The somewhat stale comment thread on this latest FICO article suddenly went off in an interesting direction. Much of the annoyance over the FICO process centered on the frustrations many of us have suffered with human resources departments. One commenter said, "And if there is a more noxious department in any company, I'm unaware of it." Another immediately suggested: "you must not have much interaction with IT." OK, now they're talking my language!

A third commenter jumped in with (mildly edited):

I use international relations and national characters as the metaphor for intra-organizational relations.

HR are likely the French: infuriating and they tell you "that is not possible" about things that you know are perfectly possible but they chose not to do because it doesn't conform with their utterly arbitrary rules.

IT are like the Soviet Union: ruthlessly imperialistic and utterly untrustworthy. They constantly try to expand their empire and impinge on user freedom and autonomy and they are more concerned about the welfare of the state than of the individuals in the community (think of all the [sh*t] they impose that makes you have to change how you work, often for the worse, with the justification that it's more efficient for the IT backbone).

The former are difficult friends (or maybe your spouse). The latter are the ENEMY (or maybe your ex).

Okay! Now we've brought in the additional useful metaphor of spouses and exes. I'd like to see where we can go with it. And don't forget lawyers. The next commenter's suggestion, "Let's not let legal off the hook here," elicted this response:

Legal are like the Scandanavians: constantly telling you can't/shouldn't do that, to the point where you wonder just whose side they're on.

And the reply: "And like the Scandinavians, almost always ignored."