He Said, She Said

Last week every person on my floor had to attend one of two mandatory diversity training sessions. For three hours. While the financial world was blowing up someone in HR decided the best possible use of our time for half an afternoon was discussing skits about new and exciting topics like same gender attraction, cultural sensitivity, and male/female interaction. Blah, blah, blah seminars are boring etc. We've all had to sit through them and undoubtedly will have to in the future. I could complain for an hour about the uselessness of these events, but that would hardly be entertaining or novel.

The reason for this post is that one of my partners gave the best answer I've ever heard to a diversity question. After a skit illustrating challenges faced by women in an environment that is overwhelmingly male, the seminar facilitator asked what our firm could do to address inequality and the perception of inequality between the genders. The facilitator turned to my partner for his thoughts. He leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers under his chin and paused to consider. There must have been twenty seconds of silence as anticipation rose in the room for his profound answer. Having made up his mind about the best course of action for this thorny problem, he looked up and with the eyes of eighty people on him slowly responded in perfect deadpan, "Well...we could hire robots...."

To say his response was not what the facilitator expected is a fantastic understatement. She looked like someone had kidney punched her as the room burst into laughter. From that point forward she was off her footing and the seminar ended more than half an hour early.

I highly recommend you consider responding similarly at your next opportunity for political incorrectness.