How to Randomize Correctly

[gr8BigGeek]

Greetings!

My Goal:

To assemble a simple script that will take employees (entered into a vertical column of text boxes by their ID number) and deploy them randomly to stations that are written into the program. The "stations" are work stations such as: sandwich line, salad bar, back office, stock room, etc.

My Situation:

The management team has been accused of showing bias by "deploying" (company lingo there) certain employees to favorable position thus indicating that there is some sort of favoritism involved. To show that I am honestly not attempting to do this I thought I could randomize assigned positions.

I found this excuse maker:

#include <Array.au3>

$thing1s = _ArrayCreate(9, "Dementors", "My cat", "My dog", "My brother", "My sister", "Hitler", "My mom", "My dad", "The Police")
$didsomethingto = _ArrayCreate(9, "ate", "vomited on", "burned", "blew up", "shot", "cut", "washed", "stole", "ran over")
$thing2s = _ArrayCreate(10, "my homework", "my money", "my house", "my face", "my brother", "my sister", "Hitler", "my mind", "my life", "my soul")
Do
    MsgBox(0, "Excuse Generator", $thing1s[Random(1, 9, 1)] & " " & $didsomethingto[Random(1, 9, 1)] & " " & $thing2s[Random(1, 10, 1)] & ".")
Until MsgBox(4, "Excuse Generator", "Generate another excuse?" & @CRLF & "Visit us at bananafredsoft.com") = 7
MsgBox(0, "Excuse Generator", "Have a nice day!")

It randomly assembles the responses but more of what I was trying to do was enter employees (between maybe 12-18 a day) into a column and then click "enter" and let the program tell me where they go.

Is this possible?

The positions they will be assigned are fixed needs of the company so they can be written into the program. At this point, I just need to find an employee to work that area (without throwing in my face that so-and-so always works somewhere they like). The only thing that changes is the employees I will be working with from day to day. Some days I only need to find places for maybe 7 employees so I could just plug them in and press "enter" and let the program tell me where they go.

Also, I have a minimum staffing requirement of 7 positions. So let's say I entered 9 employees the remainder could all be assigned to "sales floor" or "back room" or something as default (left-overs). Also, say I entered in only 6 employees and the salad bar was left unmanned; is there a way to have that position pop up (in red or something) as being vacant and then I would know I need another person?

I was hoping I could pose this to ya'll and see what your coding thoughts and feedback were.

Thanks in advance,

Matt~

[czardas]

Reading this thread may help you.

Randomly Sort an Array

[MvGulik]

The management team has been accused of showing bias by "deploying" (company lingo there) certain employees to favorable position thus indicating that there is some sort of favoritism involved. To show that I am honestly not attempting to do this I thought I could randomize assigned positions.

[chat][rhetorical]

Did you talk about this with those employees. Or are you just doing this thinking they will ditch there distrust in this matter after there told its now done with a program.

And. Randomness is absolutely none transparent. Which is probably the exact opposite of what is needed to solve social distrust problems.

[/rhetorical][/chat]

[gr8BigGeek]

From a managerial standpoint all of the issues concerning the matter have been addressed. Each employee that has had concerns about the matter have been spoken with one-on-one and we have also had a "team meeting" to address the issue of fairness. Also, if there are two employees that want to switch positions they are more than willing to if the agreement is mutual. The problem is behind us mostly, but the randomness of a program was something I was still going to pursue just for my own piece of mind.

I figured the coding could aid me in the scheduling so it would eliminate one aspect of composing the deployment chart for the day/week. I appreciate you bringing to the forefront that as a major issue to address because in all fairness I am in total agreement with you about it. No employee should feel discouraged, discriminated or just flat out upset about the work they do. As a manager I try to bring as much equality to my team as possible. More than anything I just thought that putting together a randomizer could be a wonderful help for us.

Matt~