Overheard at Table Two: Abercrombie and Sao Paolo

"My teenage daughter got a job at Abercrombie and Fitch.  She went to work in these cutoff jeans that were so short you could've called them a belt!   She tells me that's their dress code, so I looked it up and she's right.  That IS their dress code.   Apparently working at Abercrombie and Fitch you have to look like a Brazilian girl on the beach at Sao Paolo."

Left at Table 1: Paper on a Statistics Chapter 11

Attitude Scaling

Attitude scaling is the process of assessing an attitudinal disposition using a number that represents a person’s score on an attitudinal continuum ranging from an extremely favorable disposition to an extremely unfavorable one. Scaling is the “procedure for the assignment of numbers (or other symbols) to a property of objects in order to impart some of the characteristics of numbers to the properties in

question.  (Cooper and Schindler, p. 394)”

I’ve always found attitude scaling to be fascinating because it not only is dependent on how someone feels toward something, but also it is how they feel toward it during the moment that they are answering the question.   This is a critical distinction, because our feelings influence so much of our perception.   For example, you could expect that a person would answer favorably to almost every question on a survey if it was the day they just landed a great job, or just accepted a proposal for marriage.   Conversely, if someone just lost a job or their spouse just walked out on them, you could reasonably expect a different result.   Even if the attitude being addressed in the survey has nothing to do with their personal situation, you could expect that their answers will indeed be influenced by their emotional perception at any point in time.

Additionally, personality also might make an influence: there are certain characters of people who scale things differently.  If things are good, some will scale them as extremely favorable where another person might scale it as neutral.   That is more based on personality characteristics rather than situation feelings.

Still, all these are factors that go into the statistical collection of data, and it only serves to remind us that we humans are strange creatures with such complexity and variable hues of emotional coloring.

Miguel Mazariegos

Reference:

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2011). Business research methods (11th ed.). [Vitrium Systems, Inc. version]. Retrieved from http://newclassroom3.phoenix.edu/classroom

Overheard at Booth One: Bathrooms

- Personally I think since we've got all this discussion going now about who gets to go to what bathroom based on how they identify themselves as a man or a woman that we should just do away with bathrooms all together.

- Then where are people going to go - to - you know - go?

- No no, I meant do away with separate bathrooms.   Just make them "bathrooms" - unisex.  dualsex.   omnisex.  Whatever you  call it.

- What about all those creeps who'll be creeping on the women?

- Hey look, not every plan is perfect OK?  

Overheard at Table 3: Sterling and Grimm

Question:  Doesn't it seem strange to you that between the two stories of yesterday - that of a Republican Congressman who underpaid employees - a lot of them undocumented - lied on his taxes and defrauded his constituents for years . . .  AND a story of a basketball team owner who doesn't really like African Americans . . . that today the ONLY story is about Sterling and not a word about Grimm . . . don't you find that weird?


Answer:  Racism sells more news than Fraud.

Overheard at Table 3: The Difference Between Men and Women

. . . one of the differences between men and women you can tell by how they size up each other in public areas, like in walking or jogging around the park of the lake.

... how's that?

...well, men always scan women in what I call a "sex assessment" - that is, measuring the potential of how much they would want to have sex with 'em.

... and the women?

... they're always scanning men in what I call a "threat assessment"

... measuring the threat level?

... yeah.

... is that why they always run screaming from you?

...ha. ha. ha.

Overread at Booth 1: Lome Togo

- hey, look at the email I just got.   I can't believe people still be doing this kind of bullcrap! ...

Good afternoon,

My name is Barrister Alfred Morris, I am prime consultant and financial organization

here in Lome Togo Republic , apologies for informal contact, but

given the urgency of the situation was no other way , I contacted

You for something that will be of great interest / benefit to you in respect of

I sent this letter to you a month ago, but I 'm not sure if you got it, I have not heard from

You , and this is the reason I say it again.

I'm doing this for you to offer in connection with

death, which was my client before his death, leaving some huge amount of money from

7500000 dollars in the bank

Please if you are the actual owner of this email address , please come back to me

as soon as possible for additional disclosure .

Sincerely,

Barrister  Alfred Morris

- dude, does anybody really fall for that anymore?

- I guess so.  Otherwise they wouldn't keep doin it.

- that is just freaked.

Overheard at Table 5: Poem of the Day

MR
2014-0417

Poem of the Day:

Once

Once,

we floundered, and then our love

was this dead thing, that we dissected

with a pair of pruning hooks on the

floor of the shed out back behind the house.

we did it quietly,

so the neighbors could not hear us over the garden wall,

burying the pieces in various spots in the yard:

under the flower bed,

in the potted plant,

and one tiny shard that I crushed into the soft earth

moistened by the slow constant drip from the

outside faucet that I never could get around to fixing.

then, the next day, we walked out the front

door and you went to the bus station and

I took the car into the city

and no one was ever the wiser.

for Song of the Day

Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks

"Orange Crate Art"