Square Pegs in Round Holes
At my last job as a lawyer at an investment company in NYC, I spent too much time helping our paralegal deal with "Know Your Customer" documentation for the banks we used. It wasn't his fault; he was extremely competent at his job. The problem was that our operations used a layered, convoluted and unorthodox corporate structure that didn't jive with the expectations of the bank. We used to joke that bank KYC officers had a "standard" checklist for KYC and were trying to check off all of the boxes on their standard checklist -- even if those boxes didn't apply to our situation. We called it "Check The Box Syndrome". (Some other time I'll tell you about the "Clerk of the Day Rule".)
Check the Box Syndrome is an excuse for laziness and an unwillingness to apply critical thought and inductive reasoning to a scenario or problem. It is also currently the bane of my existence in a number of ways. But it serves as a good reminder that, at the poker table, there's no standard checklist for how to play any particular hand. And as soon as you fall into the trap of automatically trying to take the "standard" line -- even if that might be correct for the particular situation! -- you're regressing into lazy thinking that at some point down the road is going to bite you in the ass.
Speaking of critical thinking, a quick update on Rev. AlCantHang's "Challenge CK!!!!" NFL suicide pool after five weeks:
* 43 teams entered
* 5 teams were disqualified for failing to make a pick in the first week
* 4 other teams were disqualified for failing to make a pick in a subsequent week
* That leaves 34 valid entries.
* StB, 23skidoo, Drizz and DD List were eliminated in Week 2.
* APOSEC72, CaityCaity, tfennell and Dawn Summers (hahahaha, Steelers) were eliminated in Week 3.
* No one was eliminated in Week 4.
* Ruthless Aggression was eliminated in Week 5.
By my count, that leaves 25 teams (including CK) still standing, with Al already owing CK 9 shots. We'll probably make it through the next two weeks without too many eliminations, but Week 8 looms as a bloodbath...