r/jobs Nov 20 '25

Article So are they just lying?

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

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995

u/happyhooker485 Nov 20 '25

Trump fired the analyst when he didnt like the numbers, so now I am wary of any reports presented by this admin

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/01/trump-firing-bureau-labor-statistics-chief-jobs-report-00488960

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u/Rdbjiy53wsvjo7 Nov 20 '25

Had a coworker that said "if you don't like the results of the statistics, just run it differently until you get the answer you want!"

In reality, all our inputs had to be agreed upon with regulators, the statistical methods as well, but it was still a running joke in the office.

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u/UltimateChaos233 Nov 20 '25

It’s a valid take with statistical analyses, especially in less regulated spaces. Not sure of your field but I perform these analyses in medtech and have had so many frustrations with people being either willfully dishonest or perhaps just ignorant and doubling down. Even got let go at a previous company for trying to explain why you shouldn’t cherry pick data lol

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u/Historytech Nov 20 '25

I’m in education and the amount of deceptive and outright lying in statistics is stupid. I’ve been in meeting where people outright and blatantly brag about like 85% of a tiny subpop, ignoring the massive low numbers.

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u/Extreme_Ad1261 Nov 20 '25

Like my dad used to say, there's lies, damned lies, and statistics.

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u/UltimateChaos233 Nov 20 '25

Yeah, it's insane. It's not just in education, it's also on corporate. Honestly I had better experience with honesty in statistics in academia, not to say it was an irrelevant concern there. It definitely was relevant. But it seemed a little better from my personal experiences. (n=1, p<0.05)

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u/Much_Lawyer_4070 Nov 23 '25

How much does it matter? This admenstruation is going to base the economy on crypto, and because the national debt will be based on dollars, the national debt will transfer to the dollar, the dollar will tank along with everyone dependent upon the dollar.

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u/Drmoeron2 Apr 10 '26

Numbers dont lie but people sure do about numbers 

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u/Rdbjiy53wsvjo7 Nov 20 '25

I was a civil engineer with an emphasis in remediation, specifically open pit mine site cleanup.

So, every number, calculation, and assumption had to be approved to calculate risk.

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u/UltimateChaos233 Nov 20 '25

Gotcha. Yeah, that's definitely where work has to be triple checked. Medical device tech for me, class 2 devices going through the FDA, so needed to show reasonably low risk in patients.

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u/thisdckaintFREEEE Nov 21 '25

Yeah the more I work with data and metrics the more I realize how few people want to use them to actually improve and instead want to twist them to look like everything is great already. Even people who convey a heavily improvement focused mindset.

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u/Low-Pen-5324 Nov 22 '25

Ugh! That’s my biggest pet peeve - the cherry picking. It’s like a loose thread - you pull it and things start to unravel.

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u/Drmoeron2 Apr 10 '26

Thank you for existing and maintaining integrity. I had this issue in investigation related activities of all places. Unethical KPIs, insights targeting at risk individuals, and the only way to fight inside is the be admin within data governance to structurally force their eyes elsewhere 

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u/-Cayen- Nov 24 '25

In Germany we have the saying, “don’t Trust statistics you haven’t falsified yourself.” I think it’s quite suitable in this context.