[Roccus]

I worked in the Bell System back in the early 70s when Affirmative Action first came to the private sector thanks to an agreement between the DoJ and AT&T. While co-workers and I were discussing the future given all these new “non-quota” quota rules, one old timer opined, “No matter how you shake it, the cream will always come to the top.” We agreed, but didn’t see at the time that in order for that to come to pass, we had to stop the shaking.

[super7man]

For many years, I was an engineering manager in development for a major computer company. Each summer I looked forward to having Summer Student Associates come in and work on some of my back burner projects. We hired the top students from Stanford, Cal, MIT, etc. These “kids” were great. They instantly understood the project assigned. They understood design, instrumentation and experimentation and they worked like dogs. Some even left with a patent application filed at the end of the summer. I loved working with them.

The corporation decided to make the SSA program a minority EO outreach. So rather than finding the best and brightest, they brought in candidates from lesser schools. I tried for two years and gave up. The students were not prepared to do anything, would not reliably show up for work, were not interested in providing any outcome at the end of the summer. I went to HR to understand how I was supposed to write their end of summer appraisal, when they had basically done nothing all summer. My appraisals were pieces of art, carefully scripted to have any subsequent interviewer read between the lines. Hmmm…. Was that a microaggession?