I was once paid
to spend some time examining a finance company's customer & debts database, trying to prove some kind of rule along the lines of "most of our debt comes from unmarried 19-30 year old people, living in the North East, banking with either HSBC, Natwest or Abbey National" (as an example, they were much more specific than this).

Repeatedly I told them that they just didn't have the right kind of information (nor the depth) to statistically create such a "rule", but that didn't stop them paying me (and paying me quite well, too). Even when I presented them with a list of assumptions and "truths" that they couldn't possibly use because of their statistical invalidity, they were happy. They paid me. They thanked me. They were very happy. They were delighted when I told them they couldn't do what they wanted to do, that they were wasting their time and money trying to do this...

I never understood it. I often wondered if they were actually trying some kind of reverse-pyschology on me, or something.

Still, it directly paid for a holiday in Greece, where I drank beer with lots of skint 20-something single folk from the North. So what do I know?
( robsoft, Wed 6 Oct 2004, 0:24, Reply)