Tuesday, October 26, 2004

A through M vs. N through Z

Yesterday, my boss made a new rule that my associate and I split the alphabet and handle our respective files from now on. This seemed okay at first, until I noticed that A-M has a 3-2 ratio against N-Z. I counted all our piles around the office which are all separated in alphabetical order. And every pile had a similar ratio.
So naturally, i went and alerted my boss that this new system is not fair. Well, she told me that this works with every other company and though it varies, it will ultimately be even. So i accepted her word and forgot all about it until she came upstairs and put a peice of paper on my desk. This was an email from an unknown source which listed the 10 most common letters of last names. 6 of them were A-M. 4 were N-Z. I told her that even her paper supported my claim, and its just not fair.
Sure, it may seem like i'm trying to get out of having to do more work that my associate, and that's true, only i was more into trying to reach an understanding that based on observations, this would eventually be a problem. Well, i must have really pissed her off because she then made the following condescending comment
R: I guess we will see. That's just my hypothesis.
H: Ya, well, its a good thing that you weren't a math major.
R: Actually, i'm quite good at math.
H: Get back to work.

She later told my friend that I'm no mathemation and i should keep my hypotheses to myself.
And that was the moment I realized that I'm not getting paid to think.

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