AI: This Time is Different, or Not

(Morris/Bloomberg/WSJ)

A Stanford study has shown that artificial intelligence is reducing entry-level jobs: [bold added]

The report, “Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence,” published Tuesday, draws on millions of anonymized payroll records from ADP, the nation’s largest payroll processor, spanning late 2022 — when generative AI tools like ChatGPT surged — through mid-2025.

It found that employment for workers ages 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed jobs, including software development and customer service, has dropped by 13% relative to less-exposed roles.

By contrast, older employees in those same occupations have seen employment remain steady or even grow.

The study highlights a clear divide.

“Employment has begun to decline for young workers in highly exposed occupations like coding and call centers, but older workers and workers who use AI to augment, not automate work, have seen job gains,” Erik Brynjolfsson, a Stanford economist who led the research, wrote on social media.

Experience provides some job protection for older workers in the current environment:

Harder-to-automate skills older workers picked up during their careers might be insulating them from the same kind of AI hit. A senior software developer, for example, might have learned how to work collaboratively with noncoders and deliver the product the company needs. Such skills remain highly valued to employers, and may never be automated away.

The job-market paradox that has long pre-dated AI: employers value experience, but there are fewer jobs that allow young workers to gain experience.

To cling to the belief that all will be well is to think that this time is not different. I am not sure about that, but I am sure that I'm glad I'm retired.

AI: "A Quiet Havoc Has Begun"

(Forbes illustration)

If your job is based on your dexterity with language, numbers, or symbols, artificial intelligence is coming for it now. [bold added]

Almost everyone is rattled by the speed of its development. The story is no longer “AI in coming decades will take a lot of jobs” or “AI will take jobs sooner than we think.” It is “AI is here and a quiet havoc has begun.”

...Last week Noam Scheiber in the New York Times reported economists just out of school are suddenly having trouble finding jobs. As recently at the 2023-24 academic year, said a member of the American Economic Association, the employment rate for economists shortly after earning a doctorate was 100%. Not now. Everyone’s scaling back, government is laying off, big firms have slowed hiring. Why? Uncertainty, tariffs and the possibility that artificial intelligence will replace their workers. Mr. Scheiber quotes labor economist Betsey Stevenson: “The advent of AI is . . . impacting the market for high-skilled labor.”

That’s only economists, not beloved in America, we probably have enough. Here’s another unbeloved group. This week Journal reporter Chip Cutter had a piece titled “AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’ ” If AI can crunch numbers, analyze data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck in two seconds, what will the consulting firm do to survive? Rewire its business. Smaller, leaner teams; let AI build the PowerPoint. McKinsey’s global managing partner, Bob Sternfels, said that in the future the company will likely have one AI agent for every human employee. It’s already reduced head count.

...Accounting firms that employ 18 people will need only 14; law firms that employ 24 will need only 18 or 20. “When AI reaches into something like ‘wealth management,’ which advisory firm would you choose: one that had all of JPMorgan Chase’s massive AI infrastructure and expertise, or a ‘boutique’ firm that did not? The question is the answer.”

While every new technology has resulted in the loss of jobs in existing businesses, it has heretofore been true that capitalism has always created a greater number of jobs in new industries. But now, given that AI is able to dispense "PhD-level" advice, that faith in capitalism is wavering.

What jobs are likely to survive the AI onslaught?

[John] Ellis offers Microsoft’s list of 20 such professions. They include floor sanders and finishers, roofers, motorboat operators, massage therapists and pile-driver operators.

The above advice should be taken with a grain of salt, however. It was only a few years ago that journalists, some insultingly and some well-meaning, advised coal miners to "learn to code." Journalism and computer programming jobs are now also disappearing.

I've said it before: I'm glad we're retired.

Not How They Wanted to Be Remembered

Last Wednesday two executives for the private AI/data services company Astronomer were spotted by the "kiss cam" at a Coldplay concert (see above video). President Andy Byron and Human Resources chief Kristin Cabot, who are married to other people, were caught in a friendly embrace and tried to conceal their identities too late.

Days after a video of Byron canoodling with the company’s HR chief nearly broke the internet, the company said Byron had resigned from his position. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,” Astronomer said Saturday...

In an instant, the video became a lightning rod for the public’s conflicting views on wealth, power and simmering frustrations toward the executive class, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of management at Yale University. “There’s a certain schadenfreude associated with this,” he said. “Here’s a takedown of the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have nots.’”

The online furor erupted shortly after the camera at the Coldplay concert panned to Byron and Cabot. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said from the stage, as Byron quickly ducked out of frame and Cabot covered her face and turned.

The viral popularity of the video taps into the state of the culture:

A relationship between senior executives can send a message that “the rules don’t apply to us,” said Deb Muller, chief executive of HR Acuity, a technology platform that helps companies track employee investigations and complaints. Employees, vendors, customers and investors may also question the integrity of leaders.

“You have to start using some judgment when you’re in senior-level positions,” Muller said.

It’s unclear what Astronomer’s policy is, but the company said Friday it had initiated a formal investigation into the matter.

Because of the risks associated with such clandestine relationships, corporate boards are less tolerant today of executive romances than they once were. McDonald’s in 2019 fired then-CEO Steve Easterbrook because of his consensual relationship with an employee. BP CEO Bernard Looney resigned in 2023 after the oil giant said he hadn’t been fully transparent about past personal relationships with colleagues. And last year, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw was fired after a board probe found that his relationship with the railroad giant’s chief legal officer violated company policies.

None of those incidents, though, sparked the glee and gloating that the video of the Astronomer CEO and his HR chief have generated.

The schadenfreude that comes with the public takedown of a CEO, said Yale’s Sonnenfeld, “is elevated even more right now.”

CEO Andy Byron has resigned his position, and as of this writing there's no update on HR chief Kristin Cabot. Financially both should land on their feet, but their children will undoubtedly be damaged. Meanwhile, the mockery continues.

Dressing for Success: Harder than Ever

In the old days a wife took the blame for letting
her husband go out like this (Urban/WSJ)

Wearing a coat and tie during the sweltering days of summer was uncomfortable, but that was the businessman's lot during most of the 20th century.

Being required to wear the "uniform" had its advantages, though: men didn't have to spend a lot of time deciding what to wear. The basic wardrobe consisted of blue, black, and gray suits, blue and white shirts, and black shoes. We expressed individuality through ties.

Today it's much more complicated because there are more combinations that are possible and more ways to go wrong. Also, being classy and casual doesn't come cheap.

P. Johnson Twill Linen Corbu Vest, $490,
Oxford Shirt, $175, Ice Cotton Tee, $245,
and Tony Jeans, $370 (WSJ)

Alternatively, you could dress like a suave guy who just happens to work with money. [Alex] Seo loves classic-but-not-corporate jackets from the Armoury, including the safari styles. Zach Garst, a trendy Houston tax consultant, 28, pairs cotton slacks with “something a little more spicy,” like boxy shirts and cardigans from Auralee and Frizmworks.

For style inspo, Le Alfré founder Brandon Snower recommends @schoonerscorer, an Instagram account popular with finance guys. It features videos of a charismatic Brit—Alex Hendy—rating beers at pubs. He’s stylish but never mentions clothes. After bingeing clips, I can tell you that I won’t be slurping the ho-hum porter at one central London pub, but I do need Hendy’s cream cable-knit sweater and red Ralph Lauren shirt. I like that he’s not a “fashion influencer”—outfit-dissecting accounts often come off cringe—just a cool guy doing his thing.

One menswear account I do enjoy: @the_daily_mirror. Founder Manish Puri, who works in financial services and writes about menswear, radiates unprecious elegance with flowy trousers, suede chore coats—and a cartoon chicken head superimposed over his own.

Another benefit of the old dress code is that business attire could hide a man's defective physique. Now his flaws are accentuated.

I'm glad I'm retired.

Independence Day, 2025

One path to success is to be the world's best in a sought-after skill. Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams says that the vast majority of us who aren't so gifted should work on our talent stack,[bold added]

developing a variety of skills which combine to make someone a sought-after commodity.

Adams describes his own talent stack in the following terms: “I am a famous syndicated cartoonist who doesn’t have much artistic talent, and I’ve never taken a college-level writing class. But few people are good at both drawing and writing. When you add in my ordinary business skills, my strong work ethic, my risk tolerance, and my reasonably good sense of humor, I’m fairly unique."

Your humble blogger is an adequate accountant--but far from the best--and I have reasonably competent communication skills leavened by a sense of humor.

On this Independence Day let all our talent stacks be good enough to provide a decent standard of living for ourselves and our families.

Artificial Education

As a boomer, I am glad most of my life was spent before smartphones (the iPhone was introduced in 2007) or even the Internet. I learned how to write, solve problems without looking up the answer, and focus on tasks for hours without being distracted. Speaking of writing, here's another reason to be grateful that I received my education when I did, and yes, I would have been tempted to use artificial intelligence (AI) had it existed. [bold added]

(Illustration from Kent State U.)

There’s a Good Chance Your Kid Uses AI to Cheat

A high-school senior from New Jersey doesn’t want the world to know that she cheated her way through English, math and history classes last year.

Yet her experience, which the 17-year-old told The Wall Street Journal with her parent’s permission, shows how generative AI has rooted in America’s education system, allowing a generation of students to outsource their schoolwork to software with access to the world’s knowledge.

Educators see benefits to using artificial intelligence in the classroom. Yet teachers and parents are left on their own to figure out how to stop students from using the technology to short-circuit learning. Companies providing AI tools offer little help.

The New Jersey student told the Journal why she used AI for dozens of assignments last year: Work was boring or difficult. She wanted a better grade. A few times, she procrastinated and ran out of time to complete assignments.

The student turned to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, to help spawn ideas and review concepts, which many teachers allow. More often, though, AI completed her work. Gemini solved math homework problems, she said, and aced a take-home test. ChatGPT did calculations for a science lab. It produced a tricky section of a history term paper, which she rewrote to avoid detection.

The student was caught only once.

We are now in the second stage of the AI arms race in education. Teachers are using software to detect the use of AI, and students are using AI to "humanize" their writing.

Students don’t want to be accused of cheating, so they’re using artificial intelligence to make sure their school essays sound human.

Teachers use AI-detection software to identify AI-generated work. Students, in turn, are pre-emptively running their original writing through the same tools, to see if anything might be flagged for sounding too robotic.

In the workplace of the near future, using artificial intelligence will be a necessary skill. It will also be important to have human workers who can think for themselves. I am very happy to be retired and will be neither a worker or supervisor in that environment.

Wasted and Useful Lives

B. Kliban (1935-1990) was a cartoonist known for his drawings of cats, but it was his talent for making absurd connections that appealed to this fan. I was beginning my white collar career when I came across this gem. It was as funny then as it is now.

Welcome to the Real World

People cite evidence to support an argument, but sometimes the evidence doesn't mean what they think it means.

Headline: Calif. weather expert issues dire warning on Trump's reported mass firings [bold added]

In a post on X Friday, Daniel Swain, a former UCLA climate scientist who now works at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said the firings are alarming.

“If there were to be large staffing reductions at NOAA and NWS—[as] appears is now indeed underway, with credible reports of much larger further cuts on the horizon—there will be people who die in extreme weather events and weather-related disasters who would not have otherwise,” he said in the statement...

For example, the National Weather Service issued a “life-threatening, destructive” wind event warning for most of the Los Angeles region days before the destructive and deadly Palisades Fire began on Jan. 7, urging residents to “Stay alert to the forecast and follow instruction from emergency officials.”

Perhaps there were a few people in Palisades who paid attention--but certainly no one in authority to make any difference; Pacific Palisades was destroyed. If no one heeds the warnings, then the personnel that issue them serve little or no purpose.

Indeed, the people who lose their jobs may have integrity and be competent, but hundreds of such good people lose their jobs every day in private industry (Headline today: Two Bay Area tech giants announce huge layoffs at almost exact same moment).

Welcome to the real world, government employees.

Very Old School

100 y.o. tax preparer Else Rike (Hagerty/WSJ)

The WSJ features nonagenerian and even centenarian tax preparers: [bold added]

After more than 70 years as an independent tax preparer, [100 y.o. Else M.] Rike knows how to pace herself. She aims to finish at least three returns a day in the weeks before April 15.

Unlike other tax preparers, she doesn’t rely on software to guide her choice of deductions and exemptions or to do the sums. Instead, she punches keys on a Sharp desktop calculator, setting a tiny roll of printing paper atwirl, and then uses an electric typewriter to enter the numbers onto Internal Revenue Service forms.

“I’m not that tech-oriented,” she says. “I don’t have the computer figure it out. I do my own figuring.” Ever since childhood, she says, “math was always sort of my thing.”

Rike (pronounced Ricky) does have a computer, but she uses it only to print out forms. She doesn’t use email but does answer her cellphone or landline. To keep up with tax law, she relies heavily on a fat paperback, “U.S. Master Tax Guide.”

Mrs. Rike, like I do, subscribes to the Master Tax Guide. The MTG is sufficient for basic technical needs, and any problems it can't answer probably means the taxpayer needs to hire a specialist (e.g., closely held companies, foreign income, oil and gas) in that particular area. Specialists can be very expensive, and Mrs. Rike's price is right for her retired clientele:

“I don’t charge like others. I kind of try to do it by the hours that I put in or the number of pages of their returns,” she says. Most clients pay between $50 and $150. That includes a set of envelopes for estimated taxes, with the address labels neatly affixed.

At one point, Rike had around 300 customers. Now she has outlived most of them and serves about 80, including the children of former clients. “I don’t do too many difficult ones anymore,” she says. “I do mostly retired people.”

Her customers are loyal, and she enjoys her work. She has found what we are all searching for...life's purpose.

Inflection Points

(WSJ graphic)

After interviewing politicians of all stripes, WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan says that the old order has collapsed: [bold added]

the great story of the past dozen years or so has been the collapse of the postwar international order that created systems and ways of operating whose dynamics and assumptions were clear, predictable, and kept an enduring peace. You can say the fall began when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2022. Take your pick, it’s over.

I saw a broad and growing sense in Washington that American domestic politics, or at least that part of its politics that comes from Washington, is at a similar inflection point. That the second rise of Donald Trump is a total break with the past—that stable order, healthy expectations, the honoring of a certain old moderation, and strict adherence to form and the law aren’t being “traduced”; they are ending. That something new has begun. People aren’t sure they’re right about this and no one has a name for the big break, but they know we have entered something different—something more emotional, more tribal and visceral.

Your humble retired blogger has had five employers--all private sector--in his career. All had layoffs and reorganizations. My first experience was in 1980, and, although I was the deliverer, not the recipient of bad news, as a 27-year-old manager it was an upsetting experience; they didn't teach about this in business school.

What "stable order", Peggy? The American majority who never worked in the Federal Government have watched for over one generation as no one seemingly was ever fired for laziness or incompetence. Government employees just put in their time and received a guaranteed pension and medical benefits that exceeded anything most normal people ever got.

So the Trump Administration is firing people? Maybe some don't deserve that fate, which by the way I also thought back in the 1980 layoff that I experienced. Welcome to the real world, guys.

Songs of the Season

(Reprised):

In the late 1990's my former employer could draw on a talent pool of more than 200 financial professionals to put together a decent holiday choir. The grainy video (VHS tape) and monaural audio won't attract any hits today, but Christmas is a time of nostalgic sentimentality...



Note: here are parts Two, and Three.

Part Four is below:



Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow...

But the fates do not allow. As this year has reminded us, Our time together is fleeting, gone in the wink of an eye. Like the ghostly watchers in Grover's Corners, we have an eternity to mull the regrets of moments unappreciated until too late.

The Subtlety of Politics

For the past month I've been watching the candidates for national office give speeches and interviews. I've been impressed with the ability of J.D. Vance to respond to questions, hostile or otherwise, and show that he has more than a surface knowledge of the issues. Of the four candidates I think he is the most skilled at dealing with the press.

Below is an example, albeit during a friendly interview with Fox News' Dana Perino:



At the 1:25 mark he says "You can't just walk into a McDonald's and sign a W-9 and actually go onto the payroll." (The W-9 is the IRS form in which a new employee declares his Social Security Number to his employer.) The fact that Mr. Vance knew the correct form number and stated it when he didn't have to was impressive to this career accountant.

Additional comment on McDonald's: there's a ridiculous controversy about whether Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's. She claims that she did, and her detractors say that she didn't; neither side has produced evidence to support their position, and McDonald's has no record of her employment. (The Harris campaign believes that she worked during the summer of 1983 at the McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda, California.)

There's an easy way to check. Just ask the Social Security Administration:

We can give you copies or printouts of your Forms W-2 for any year from 1978 to the present. You can get free copies if you need them for a Social Security-related reason. But there is a fee of $62 per request if you need them for an unrelated reason. You can also get a transcript or copy of your Form W-2 from the Internal Revenue Service. However, state and local tax information isn’t available if you e-filed your tax return.

How tough would it be for Kamala Harris to request a copy of her 1983 W-2 from the SSA or IRS and put the matter to rest? The fact that she hasn't done so is a strong indicator that she did not work at McDonald's, but of course yours truly is just a simple accountant who knows nothing about the subtlety of politics.

Humorbragging

(Illustration by Verplancke/WSJ)

Humblebragging (“I hate that I look so young; even a 19-year-old hit on me!”) has been around for years. Now there's humorbragging.

A team of researchers have found that “humorbragging”—referring to your accomplishments through a veil of humor—allows people to play up their skills without coming across as smug or conceited. And that makes them more likely to get hired or get their pitch accepted...

The researchers used a series of studies to test the impact of what they called humorbragging. In one instance, they sent out two résumés to 345 companies—but one version of the résumé added a dash of self-promotional humor instead of being purely serious: “The more coffee you can provide, the more output I will produce.” The résumés with the joke got an email or a callback by 156 companies, versus 125 for the others.

Another study got similar results when looking at humorous bragging on the first four seasons of “Shark Tank”—people who used humor to highlight their accomplishments were more likely to get funding than others.

Speaking from personal experience (okay, missteps) it's really tough to be funny, especially in a business setting.

Many subjects should not even be broached, or should be mentioned only within narrow constraints. It's advisable to test-run your humorbrag before a trusted confidant. Because of the consequences of a poor reaction to your humorbrag, follow the advice of grammar teachers regarding commas: when in doubt leave it out.

HENRYs

In 1980 the "young urban professional" (YUP-py) was identified as a significant cohort, and ensuing demographic acronyms have never stopped coming.

DINKs (double income, no kids), BOBOs (bourgeois bohemians), WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) all have had their place in the sun. Now there are HENRYs (high earner, not rich yet). [bold added]

Fifteen years ago if you’d told April Little that she’d make $300,000 a year, she would have pictured a life free of financial stress.

“The white picket fence—I have the whole visual in my head,” says Little, 38 years old, a human-resources executive turned career coach in Rochester, N.Y. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but when I got to that proverbial mountaintop I realized there’s a lot of expenses. And I still don’t own a home.”

So go the plush-but-not-too-plush lives of the Americans who qualify as HENRY—high earner, not rich yet.

Little makes multiple six figures running her own business but carries $90,000 of college and grad-school debt. Child care and education for her three children would be so costly that she and her husband decided the better option was for him to leave his radio job to parent and home-school full time.

New census data show 14.4% of U.S. households bring in $200,000 or more a year, a near record. Yet the money doesn’t have the buying power those earners wish it did, partly due to the rising prices hammering us all and partly due to the supercharged costs of things like houses and cars. HENRYs describe feeling stuck on a hamster wheel—a nice one that other hamsters envy—but running in place nonetheless.

Oh come on, you’re thinking. You’re asking me to feel sympathy for Audi-driving, Chase Sapphire-loving, Whole Foods-shopping consultant types with kids in private school?

Well…not exactly. But what they’re feeling is a version of what a lot of Americans at every income level face—making more money but not feeling like there’s a surplus. The essence of being a HENRY is feeling a gap between what you have and what you think you need to be comfortable.

What these high earners consider essentials might be termed luxuries (or nonsense) by the rest of us, but it’s also true that it takes more money to feel rich these days. And their great fear is becoming a HENRE: high earner, not rich ever.

The outlays for housing, private schools, transportation, and health care, not to mention education indebtedness, are often underestimated by 20- or 30-year-olds who think they have made it with a $200,000+ starting salary.

Even HENRYs whose futures look bright can't relax, since the loss of their high-paying job could be disastrous.

Speaking from the experience of being a previous generation's HENRY, I had visions of being able to quit when I was 40 but didn't achieve that psychological comfort zone until I was in my mid-60's. Hard work and technical abilities, while necessary, were IMHO not as important as finding a trustworthy life time partner and keeping one's health. (Having a little luck helps, too.)

The Chickens are Going Elsewhere to Roost

Intuit HQ in Mountain View (Mercury photo)

Despite economic strength in the rest of the country Bay Area tech layoffs continue. IBM, Cisco, and Advantest announced that a combined 1,000 jobs will be "permanently" eliminated by the end of November.

Added to the 384 positions extinguished at Intuit's Mountain View HQ in July, over 45,000 jobs have been lost in the Bay Area since 2022.

None of the aforementioned companies are in trouble. In fact, all their stocks are trading near the high for the year.

Udemy looks like it was a nice place to work (Chron)

San Francisco-based Udemy is more explicit about the reasons it is cutting Bay Area jobs: [bold added]

Udemy, the world’s largest online learning marketplace, announced plans to lay off 280 employees, representing approximately 20% of its global workforce. The company said it intends to rehire about half of these positions in locations with lower operational costs.

The restructuring is expected to incur costs ranging from $16 million to $19 million, mainly in severance payments, and will span from the third fiscal quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025. Udemy aims to complete the restructuring by March 31.

Udemy is a relatively small company with 1,443 employees at the end of 2023. Earlier this week we posted about how California's inhospitable business environment (taxes, regulatory inefficiencies, anti-business Progressive attitudes) caused Elon Musk to move his multi-billion dollar enterprises to Texas.

California's heavy hand applies to small businesses as well.

The Limits of Competition

(Image from Yale Insights)

During my career I worked for a CEO who thought internal competition was the way to get the most out of workers.

The competition was at its fiercest when it came to devising a new line of business. My team worked round the clock, as did the others, to come up with an idea and the strategy to implement it.

No team "won." We ended up adopting a strategy proposed by a well-known consulting firm.

Internal competition often is counter-productive.

Internal competition often stifles innovation.

That is what we found in a study of companies that pushed internal teams to compete with each other—whether for formal financial rewards like bonuses, or for informal ones like greater prestige, access to executives and influence.

Yes, by some indicators, the teams ended up working harder when they were battling each other. But they failed in another crucial respect: The more teams competed, the less innovative they were. Simply put, they were wary of sharing information with other teams, so they weren’t getting unexpected, inspiring ideas from people in other parts of the company.

In fact, the only teams that excelled in the study were ones that did choose to share information with others, whether out of necessity or strategically.

Competition drives innovation, but it appears not to work if the organization competes internally. [bold added]

How, then, can companies leverage the benefits of competition without sacrificing information sharing between teams?

For one thing, choose an outside target: Instead of making internal teams battle each other, have them try to beat external benchmarks, such as how many patents a rival company produces. Companies should also make efforts to ensure groups share information, such as holding regular meetings or creating a shared database that any team could use.

Competition is one of the foundational elements of capitalism, but it is not the only element. The free flow of information is another, as well as the shared value to seek the good of the whole.

Taking a Break from Work

Happy Labor Day!

ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith almost can't believe what he's hearing about someone's work ethic.

https://t.co/V3brHELkWd pic.twitter.com/qWjs8PG9Gm

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) August 31, 2024

MEI, not DEI

(Image from Diversio/Linkedin)

There's a new Human Resources acronym to learn about: [bold added]

From tech to tractors, companies are dialing back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Instead, a DEI alternative endorsed by Elon Musk could alter the fate of your next job application.

It’s known as MEI, short for merit, excellence and intelligence. As described by Scale AI Chief Executive Alexandr Wang, who helped popularize the term, MEI means hiring the best candidates for open roles without considering demographics.

The George Floyd riots of 2020 kickstarted the whole Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement, and companies raced to install DEI programs that would diversify their work forces, diversity being typically measured by the number of people they would hire who were not white, straight males.

Four years later the lack of a return--or perhaps even a negative return--on their investment have caused some companies to renounce DEI in favor of merit-based personnel policies.

Your humble blogger finds it important to note that one major organization that wholeheartedly embraces DEI is government, which has few performance metrics and no competition to show whether an alternative might be better.

By the way, expect DEI to be a hot-button topic this election year:

That tension is now in the brightest of spotlights, after President Biden abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden picked Harris as his running mate four years ago, after vowing to consider only women for the job. Almost immediately, some political opponents began painting Harris, who is Black and South Asian, as a “DEI hire.”

Fox News:

Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost said on Tuesday that calling Vice President Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, a "DEI hire" was like using a "racial slur."

The race card has already been played, and there's still over three months to go to the election.

Jiggling Too Much Can Get You Fired

I took early retirement in the oughts when people worked in the office full time.

Workers took computer breaks by web surfing, online shopping, and playing Solitaire. As long as we didn't engage in these activities too long or too often--there weren't specific numerical criteria--our employer didn't mind. The protocols didn't have to be spelled out, and for the most part it just took a passing manager's raised eyebrow to show where the line was.

The phenomenon of working from home has resulted in the formalization of employee monitoring. Also, technological advances have accelerated the "arms race" between employees who devise new ways to goof off and employers who measure productivity. [bold added]

It’s getting harder to outsmart the digital minders at work.

The rise of remote work and, in turn, employee-monitoring software sparked a boom in mouse and keyboard jigglers and other hacks to help staffers fake computer activity—often so they can step away to do laundry or a school pickup.

Now some companies are cracking down on the subterfuge, deploying tools that can better spot the phony busywork.

The latest salvo in this productivity-tracking arms race came in a recent regulatory filing from Wells Fargo. In the disclosure, first reported on by Bloomberg News, the bank said it had fired more than a dozen employees in its wealth and investment management unit for allegedly simulating keyboard activity to create the “impression of active work.”

Here's an ad for a mouse jiggler, a device that didn't exist back in my day.

Why have I never seen this before 😱

Make it look like you are available when you are away from your computer with this mouse jiggler 👀

Check it out here ➡️ https://t.co/H8RgWddnu0

# ad pic.twitter.com/bfowptdZfk

— Bargain Hunters and Discount Codes (@bargainhdc) March 4, 2024

Finance Bros' Day in the Sun

Forget about going after doctors or lawyers, ladies, it's time to prowl Wall Street:

It all started with a TikTok video by 27-year-old Megan Boni, known as Girl On Couch. Her April post, amassing about 49 million views, features a singsong message: “I’m looking for a man in finance. Trust fund. 6’5.” Blue eyes.”

This video was clearly made in jest. For the height criterion alone the percentage of men over 6'5" is less than one percent. Plus a trust fund and blue eyes? That's a unicorn.

Boni said she made the original video as a satire of women with impossible dating standards, not because she’s particularly interested in dating a man in finance.

“I wanted to make fun of single people, including myself,” she said.

Your humble blogger went into finance, is well short of 6', has brown eyes, and has no trust fund. Nevertheless, his life turned out all right. I recommend finance as a career if you're willing to work hard, but don't expect success on dating apps.

Below is a video that starts with Megan Boni's original, then riffs on it.