From: IN%"KENNEDY@Eisner.DECUS.Org" "Terry Kennedy" 20-JUL-1992 21:55:05.44 To: IN%"Terry@spcvxa.spc.edu" CC: Subj: Notefile SHOP_TALK Note 20.8 Return-path: Received: from Eisner.DECUS.Org by spcvxa.spc.edu (PMDF #2329 ) id <01GMM7UI76CW8WW9AD@spcvxa.spc.edu>; Mon, 20 Jul 1992 21:54:55 EDT Received: from Eisner.DECUS.Org by Eisner.DECUS.Org (PMDF #2354 ) id <01GMM7KVSJ2U000J8T@Eisner.DECUS.Org>; Mon, 20 Jul 1992 21:47:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: 20 Jul 1992 21:47:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Kennedy Subject: Notefile SHOP_TALK Note 20.8 To: Terry@spcvxa.spc.edu Message-id: <01GMM7KVSJ2W000J8T@Eisner.DECUS.Org> Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society X-VMS-To: in%"Terry@spcvxa.spc.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT <<< EISNER::DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]SHOP_TALK.NOTE;1 >>> -< SHOP_TALK >- ================================================================================ Note 20.8 Computer Humor 8 of 8 EISNER::ALTOBELLO "Gus Altobello, himself" 148 lines 20-JUL-1992 15:23 -< Latest in personnel theory .... >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cross-posted from our AMUSEMENT conference... ================================================================================ -------------------------------------- - PACHYDERMIC PERSONNEL PREDICTION - -------------------------------------- Over the years, the problem of finding the right person for the right job has consumed thousands of worker-years of research and millions of pounds in funding. This is particularly true for high-technology organisations where talent is scarce and expensive. Recently, however, years of detailed study by the finest minds in the field of psycho-industrial interpersonnel optimisation have resulted in the development of a simple and foolproof test to determine the best match between personality and profession. Now, at last, people can be infallibly assigned to the jobs for which they are truly best suited. The procedure is simple : Each subject is sent to Africa to hunt elephants ! The subsequent elephant-hunting behaviour is then categorised by comparison to the classification rules outlined below. The subject should be assigned to the general job classification that best matches the observed behaviour. CLASSIFICATION GUIDELINES ------------------------- (a) Mathematicians Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant and catching one of whatever is left. Experienced mathematicians will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise. Professors of mathematics will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students. (b) Computer Scientists Will hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A : 1. Go to Africa 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope 3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continents alternately east and west. 4. During each traverse pass, a. Catch each animal seen. b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant. c. Stop when a match is detected. (c) Experienced Computer Programmers Will modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate. Assembly level programmers prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees. 4GL programmers do it in hot air balloons with microscopes. 5GL programmers let go of their jeep's steering wheel and let it learn by its own mistakes. (d) Hardware Engineers hunt elephants by catching anything that moves and applying electrodes to various bits of its anatomy until it makes the sound of an elephant, then replacing that part with the equivalent parts of an aspidistra, before releasing the elephant again and declaring it fit to be caught. (e) Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves. (f) Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant. (g) Project Managers dont hunt elephant but detail the route around Africa by looking at a map of any continent of similar shape then listing all the places starting with the letter 'A' first, then 'B', and so on. All hunters will receive travel schedules with times and distances measured in furlongs per fortnight for these destinations. It will be assumed all hunters will average a speed of 97.4 mph day and night. (h) Consultants don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do. Operations research consultants can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet colour to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants. (i) Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them. (j) Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings. Software Lawyers will claim they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping. (k) Senior Managers set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices. (l) Management Consultants dont hunt elephants, but write reports concerning their inherent greyness, the depth of their voices and the size of their toenails. All these factors are, of course, extremely important in defining any broad ranging, in depth, corporate Elephant Hunting Policy for The Next Five Years that has any hope of credibility with the shareholders. (m) Quality Assurance Inspectors ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they they were packing the jeep. (n) Salespeople dont hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens. Software Salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant. Hardware Salespeople catch rabbits, paint them grey and sell them as desktop elephants.