Troper Tale: At my last job, at a British public sector organisation which has been in the news a lot lately, ''every'' section was required to suggest and act on a different improvement strategy despite a highly varying workload and frequent changes in our working practices. When I suggested that we make ''no'' changes and act as the control group, my manager said this was unnecessary. I then told him that I would inform the medical and scientific community that they'd been getting it wrong these many years. Surprisingly, he had no answer for this.Â

If this is the organisation to which this editor thinks this entry refers, he's not surprised in the least, having worked there himself.Â

And now for something completely stupid: This troper does what she calls "experiments", which are really just doing random/stupid things to see what happens, such as dropping a grapefruit in a shoe (using my sock as insulation) off a flight of stairs to see what happens. (If you're curious, the grapefruit cracked, and I got a sticky sock.) The "control group" the next day consisted of dropping an unwrapped grapefruit off of the same stairs (it didn't crack); it was more an excuse to drop things off of heights than any attempt at scientific accuracy.Â

Your sample size was dreadful in any case :PÂ Â