Some new bosses come in and try to change everything without really understanding what is and is not working at the company.

That’s not what happens in this story.

This new boss actually wants to understand the company better, so he calls a meeting.

The funny part is what happens when one employee starts talking about statistics.

Let’s read all the details.

Statistical Nonsense

We hired a new college graduate to work in the accounting department.

Casey was irritating, and always quoting statistics that agreed with the point he was trying to make.

He would frequently say, “Statistics don’t lie.”

About a year later his boss resigned.

On his first day the new boss called for a meeting to get to know everyone.

Some employees dressed to impress.

Employees in the accounting department dressed up.

Men wore suits with ties, the woman wore dresses or nice pants suits.

The new boss did not.

His attire that day was casual loafers, dockers, and a button down shirt with no tie.

He asked questions, and it became clear that he wasn’t interested in people trying to sell themselves to the new boss; he was trying to get his arms around his new job and department.

The new boss interrupted a lot.

A couple times he interrupted the person speaking and asked for “the short answer”.

For one, he said, “Cut the nonsense. Just answer the question.”

When Casey was called upon, the new boss stopped him a couple of times, once to ask about the numbers he was spewing out.

When he added ,”Statistics don’t lie,” the boss told him that you can make statistics say what you want them to.

The boss proved his point.

When Casey started to correct him, he said, “I can quote you a statistic that is 100% accurate, but totally meaningless.

Casey told the boss in a very disrespectful tone, that he would love to hear that one.

The boss replied, “The average person has one testicle. Very accurate, but but meaningless statistically.”

There was silence, then laughter.

Time for another joke!

Casey gathered up his papers and walked out of the meeting.

The boss, with a straight face, asked us if he was always this testy, to more laughter.

From then on, when Casey started to get out of hand, someone would say something like, “You’re a bit testy today” and that would shut him up.

That was funny! The new boss sounds awesome!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s another useless and inaccurate statistic.

And yet another nonsense statistic.

This sounds like a really interesting class!

This woman shares her husband’s favorite quote about statistics.

It turns out, statistics do lie.

They can do whatever you want, actually.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.