Comments on: October 21 roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/october-21-roundup-4/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:52:09 +0000 hourly 1 By: Hugo S Cunningham https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/october-21-roundup-4/comment-page-1/#comment-328506 Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:52:09 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=55643#comment-328506 DD has caused me to rethink the Amazon/NYT controversy a bit.

Amazon claims the distressful peer evaluations are sugarcoated with compliments, but I am put in mind of the officer efficiency reports (OERs) that prevailed in the USAF in the 1980s. Bosses had to rate their subordinates twice yearly on a scale of 1 (abysmal) to 10 (walks on water), with perhaps 40 words to back it up, for perhaps 8 categories of performance and leadership. Anything less than a 10 in *any one* of those categories was considered a “bad” OER that would spoil any chance to promotion and guarantee that one would have to seek civilian employment in the next couple of years.

Apart from the “bad” OERs, subtle cues in the justification for 10 (“walks on water”) ratings would suggest to the knowledgable whether the highest rating was sincere. If your boss liked you but was a bad writer, hopefully his boss (who had to approve the OER) would help him get it right. (Realizing how ridiculous OER inflation had become, the USAF switched to a new satisfactory/unsatisfactory system around 1990.)

Might the sugar-coating in Amazon peer evaluations be equally meaningless to those in the know?

]]> By: Hugo S Cunningham https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/october-21-roundup-4/comment-page-1/#comment-328504 Wed, 21 Oct 2015 21:58:01 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=55643#comment-328504 For over a decade, I have said that the NYT cannot be relied on in controversies involving race or gender. They may be adding labor to that list.

]]> By: DensityDuck https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/october-21-roundup-4/comment-page-1/#comment-328496 Wed, 21 Oct 2015 19:59:48 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=55643#comment-328496 amazon’s “response” is a bunch of vague accusations of bad faith, exactly what you might expect from an organization scrambling to do damage-control. “Oh, him, well, he was a criminal and we totally fired him so OBVIOUSLY he’s not telling the truth. We’re not gonna corroborate this with links to actual criminal reports by a third party, just trust us–he’s a bastard.” And a bunch of fluff about how the NYT totally lied about everything. Oh, and responses are turned off; ain’t no backtalk in Amazon-land.

]]> By: Jim Collins https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/october-21-roundup-4/comment-page-1/#comment-328488 Wed, 21 Oct 2015 16:17:23 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=55643#comment-328488 The definition of an oxymoron. The New York Times and Facts.

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