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Query Quotient

Working for a large company, I often find myself in the scenario of needing information.  I therefore seek to resolve this knowledge deficit by sending a simple email to an individual who holds said knowledge.  Yet all too often my queries go ignored.  Why is that?  What deep underlying motivations have possessed this individual to turn a deaf ear to the needs of others?  What cruel, sociopathic inclinations govern this person’s actions?

I debated at length these social dynamics, but the answer wasn’t nearly so disturbing as my overly-dramatic introduction might have implied.  Rather, I conclude there are a few and very simple factors: Does the person feel they have time (an extension of job title and pay grade), does the person feel the inquirer is worthy of their time (also an extension of job title and pay grade), can the person benefit from the inquirer, has the inquirer committed some social slight against them, and does the person like the inquirer?

To distill this even further, from the contactee’s perspective:

  • Are you at my level?
  • Has there or will there be a quid pro quo?
  • Do I like you?

Yet all reasons are not created equal, so based upon entirely subjective reasoning, I have developed a formula to weight them properly:

  1. Each party’s pay grade.  The first thing an email recipient looks at when receiving an email from an unknown party is that person’s job title.  A lot of information can be instantly determined from the hierarchy.  If you’re higher than me, I’d better listen, for my future promotion could depend on it.  If you’re lower than me, well…(dismissive wave of the hand).  If we’re the same level, I should at least consider you a peer, and there’s the possibility that I might work for you one day.
  2. Subjectives.  How well do I know this person, do we work together, do we have a good working relationship, and do I like you?  So much is difficult to determine from an email, but in short, if you’ve pissed me off, then you’re probably not going to get an answer.  Fair?  No.  True?  Always.  From failed experiences, I know to always humble myself accordingly when initiating contact.
  3. Positive Empiricals.  Have you done good work for me before and are you a potential cardinal to my promotion?  Obviously I would want to maintain a relationship with someone who’s benefiting me directly.
  4. Negative Empiricals.  Have you done lousy work for me before and have you beat me out for a job or opportunity?  Obviously I’d want to distance myself from a poor worker, but the last point does seem petty.  However, people take ego blows very seriously, and it’s no coincidence that former colleagues have severed contact when I became competition, and especially if I won.

As for probability, I’ve determined from experience that I will always get a response from a peer if every positive category is satisfied.  I will generally always get a response from someone lower with almost all of these conditions satisfied.  And I will usually get a response from someone higher with every condition satisfied.  However, if any negative conditions are satisfied, then the response rate very quickly drops.  As I stated, it’s weighted, and formerly positive relationships are always easy to sabotage since the human mind tends to remember the bad and not the good.  Here’s the formula for reference:

=IF(Their pay grade>Your pay grade,100*((1/(0.5*(Their pay grade-Your pay grade))/4)+(Do you know them?+Do you work with this person currently?+Is person within your department?+Do you have a positive working relationship?+Do they like you?)/25)+(Have you done good work for them before?+Can you get this person a job/opportunity?)/10)-(Have you done bad work for them before?+Have you beat that person out for job/opportunity?)/5)),IF(Your pay grade>Their pay grade,70+(100*(Do you know them?+Do you work with this person currently?+Is person within your department?+Do you have a positive working relationship?+Do they like you?)/25)+(Have you done good work for them before?+Can you get this person a job/opportunity?)*10)),60+(100*(Do you know them?+Do you work with this person currently?+Is person within your department?+Do you have a positive working relationship?+Do they like you?)/25)+(Have you done good work for them before?+Can you get this person a job/opportunity?)*10)-(Have you done bad work for them before?+Have you beat that person out for job/opportunity?)*10))))

Of course, that nightmarish formula is more readily understood in its natural format: a spreadsheet, so naturally I’ve provided it along with instructions:

https://moorheadfamily.net/data/Query%20Quotient.xlsx

Out of curiosity, I tested it with a recent scenario involving someone from our Legal department.  The calculator suggested a 33% chance of receiving a response, and seeing as it took 3 weeks to get any answer, this figure seems pretty accurate.  Hopefully this tool will allow you to adjust your project timelines accordingly.

–Simon

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Eye of Newt

As a species, we’re obsessed with the metaphysical–a concept that has long predated the scientific method and its analysis of the empirical…and of course the two have always been at odds.  The latter offers explanations based on irrefutable perception, while the former is more supposition.  Perhaps it’s because the scientific method has and always will probably fail to answer every question that could ever be conceived by the powers of runaway brain growth and abstract cognition.

But historically, the greater unease has been the possibility that a mortal might tap into the metaphysical to produce very physical consequences.  It’s easy to be understanding of a deity, who presumably has the knowledge and intellect to manipulate the metaphysical in a responsible manner, but were a human to dabble in the occult and gain unearthly power over the physical, well then the conclusion could only be that this power will corrupt and the practitioner would become evil.

That’s one guess anyway, although I think the greatest influence on changing the public perception has been Christianity.  Alchemists and shamen became witches and heretics.  Then again, so too were prominent scientists in their day.  Maybe the greatest fear then was threatening the status quo and the balance of power.

Despite the lengthy introduction, this is not a post aimed to tackle these questions.  No, this is a post of inquisition, though not in the scary torture type of religious context.

I went out to split some firewood, and saw these:

Naturally curious at what appeared to be a magic circle, potion, and wand; I asked my daughter for an explanation.  Her simple answer: “It’s a spell.”  Unlike what some of her more distant relatives might have, I did not start splashing her in holy water and waving a rosary.  Rather, I was curious where she had learned about these things.  The color of the markings even resembled woad.  Interesting.  I wondered what she was conjuring.  Maybe she was trying to cure herself of the virus that had been plaguing her respiratory system for the last two weeks.

But upon further questioning, it was apparent that I had misheard.  A child’s soft palate had lended a lisp to her words.  It was not a spell.  It was a stove.  She had drawn a range and was cooking stew.  It was no attempt to bridge the material and metaphysical, no, it was a simple emulation of the culinary arts.

I admit, I was a little disappointed.  Then again, learning to cook is probably a more valuable life skill than making love potions.

–Simon

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Decade

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out a clever alliterative title to this post.  All the D-words I could think of were rather derogatory (see–there’s one right there), and while I may have failed to change others’ lives with my career, like so many with hopes and dreams of grandeur, I did managed to change mine, and drastically improve its standard of living.  And after all, isn’t that our prime directive as a species, before we get into all that nonsense about purpose and self-actualization that we’re spoon-fed from the time we learn to write our names?

But I’m too young for a midlife crisis.  This was a mere 10 years.  What happened career-wise in that timeframe?  Hmm…

I joined the company as the recession hit.  Large swaths of the management staff were let go.  Merit raises were frozen, our insurance was overhauled (not for the better), there was a hiring freeze, and then the parent company tried to sell off the division.  When that failed, they realigned it, then merged it, and ultimately spun it off.  In the end, I held 6 different positions over that time.  It wasn’t exactly a period of sustained economic growth.

Through it all, the company has still maintained the practice of awarding ceremonial gifts unto an employee upon reaching a milestone number of tenured years.  Or rather, they send a digital catalog and the employee gets to pick out a gift.  They can be a bit odd too, like sunglasses, a crockpot, or a telescope.  But I, reflecting upon what I have endured to reach that point, prefer to find my own symbolic meanings and so choose something of…symbolism.

So it was that upon reaching 5 years, when I was still a call-center agent toiling away in the ranks, when every second of my time spent on the clock was tracked and reported to generate various statistics and graphs that visualized how I wasn’t working hard or quickly enough, that I chose the Bulova analog watch:

…you know, because time?  Although now it occurs to me that this may already be intended symbolism, due to the watch’s ubiquity as a “years of service” award.  Because I guess there isn’t really a wearable calendar.

But now, I’ve reached 10 years.  Following suit on the symbolic gift appropriate choice…thing, I noticed this in the catalog:

A crystal whiskey decanter!  I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate had I tried: both a symbol of what has gotten me through those 10 years alive, and going forward, a physical item to get me through the next 10 years.

Plus, it’ll annoy Liz.  Win!

–Simon