Police fitness test 'is biased in favour of fat male officers'

[garbon]

I work in billing. What, exactly, should I be using to tally up accounts?



Yeah, that looks a lot like mine, actually.

Accounting software on a computer.

Great.

[DGuller]

I work in billing. What, exactly, should I be using to tally up accounts?

Excel?  Special software?  I may be missing the nuance of billing work, but it sounds to me that if you have to manually input numbers to do the calculations, then you're missing a process improvement or ten that could really save you time and errors.

[Admiral Yi]

How would Excel save any key strokes?

[Eddie Teach]

Makes it easier to troubleshoot when she makes a mistake.

[Admiral Yi]

Makes it easier to troubleshoot when she makes a mistake.

How so?  Numbers don't add up on the machine, i have to look through the tape.  Numbers don't add up on Excel, I have to look through the cells.

[Neil]

But that's the thing - does "the street" really prioritize sheer strength?

I won't deny it - a 5'1" 110lb female officer is at a distinct disadvantage if it comes to a physical brawl.  We have some of those over here as well, and I've seen a couple files where things would have gone differently if the officer on scene was a hulking male.

But how often do those kinds of brawls happen?  Pretty infrequently or even rarely.  For 99% of their time, even 99.9% of their time, sheer physical strength isn't important.  And instead there are tremendous advantages to having a diverse police force.  From the purely practical (need female officers to search female prisoners), to investigative (a female officer may be much more likely to get the rape victim to talk).

How do you square that circle?  I dunno.  But there are competing objectives.

But it's that .1% that really matters, that's life and death.

[merithyn]

Accounting software on a computer.

And how do I reconcile the accounts?

[mongers]

Accounting software on a computer.

And how do I reconcile the accounts?

Someone will be along in a while, to tell you they run and view their entire life through the prism of excel spreadsheets.   

[merithyn]

Someone will be along in a while, to tell you they run and view their entire life through the prism of excel spreadsheets.   

We use those, too.

[DGuller]

How would Excel save any key strokes?

Numbers have to come from somewhere before they need to be added up.  It's easier to automatically or semi-automatically link that "somewhere" to an Excel workbook rather than a calculator.

[CountDeMoney]

I'd like to bludgeon DGuller with

[DGuller]

I'd like to bludgeon DGuller with

That thing doesn't even have plus or minus signs on it.

[CountDeMoney]

"Plus" is imbedded in the adding process by default.  You want "minus", put it in reverse, Rain Man.

[DGuller]

"Plus" is imbedded in the adding process by default.  You want "minus", put it in reverse, Rain Man.

No wonder you want to bludgeon people with that thing.  That's the only thing it's good for.

[garbon]

Shit, we accidentally awoke the crazy cat lady luddite.

If it ain't old and useless with a cat pawprint on it, he ain't having it.