It's very fashionable these days to talk about the differences between men and women, particularly since the success of the book Men are from Mars, Women from Venus.

And there is no doubt that such gender differences, while amusing and entertaining socially, have a significant effect on the way people do their jobs.

We employ very bright young men and women but I must confess to always being torn when it comes to hiring. If I take the bright young men, they're usually very personable, boy-next-door types, who will go down a bundle with the clients and are often quite good on the technology and the numbers.

But completer/finisher? Attention to detail? Paperwork? Usually not good, so often you give them female mopper-uppers - but that lets them off the hook.

Also, if they're going to make a mistake, it's a biggy, because they don't stop and check. It's like the joke "Why does it take so many male sperm to fertilise one female egg? Because they won't stop and ask the way."

So hiring women is the answer then? Well, not necessarily. Apart from the obvious risks of having a woman of child-bearing age, the plus of women's attention to detail is often balanced off by the minus that they are less good at seeing the big picture.

They are also often less outgoing socially and less keen to go 'on the town' with the client entertaining.

So, is the solution to hire homosexual men and laddish girls? I doubt it! I guess at the end of the day we have to just go for the best person. But one thing does worry me - new technology, computers, Internet, etc, are 'sit down' scenarios.

Women much prefer to sit down anyway (look at any pub) because of our physiology. So are the men going to be a dying species of employee anyway?

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.