Standard Deviation

standard deviation
noun
Statistics.

1. a measure of dispersion in a frequency distribution, equal to the square root of the mean of the squares of the deviations from the arithmetic mean of the distribution.

This week, for the first time, I wrote a grievance that included factual numbers. One person in a team was sent away on detail to an offsite more times than her colleagues. I wanted to say "significantly more" times. I wound up saying that the number of occurrences was "STATISTICALLY significant."

We seldom use these types of facts when we argue managerial bad behavior. Never in my life after graduate school had I ever imagined I would create a document that sported the mean, median, mode, variance, or standard deviation of a collection of numbers.

I'm too close to this grievance right now... WIll have to approach it a bit more closely later.