[jrockway]

I think the choice of breed has meaning. The border collie is the smartest breed of dog, and its origin is in herding sheep. Calling your coworkers sheep isn't particularly nice. Calling yourself the smartest breed of dog isn't particularly humble. That's why the person you're replying to objects.

[phil21]

Ridiculous. We should be calling people out for being performatively offended. It reduces the impact and gravitas of situations where real offense is given that should be considered.

I have herded cats, sorted sheep, and wrangled cattle all throughout my career. I can come up with more that are quite accurate to the situation.

And I've been the cat, sheep, and cattle likely more than I have been on the other side.

It's simply part of working with groups of humans. We become dumb in groups and lend ourselves towards herd behavior. It often requires someone tending to us to break us of the habit.

[dpark]

This is some really tortured logic to find something to get offended about.

> Calling yourself the smartest breed of dog isn't particularly humble

Surely “smart as a border collie” is not a high bar for a human.

[adiabatichottub]

That's probably reading too much into the metaphor. I think it's apropos because regardless of whether the others are smart or not, we all have blind sides, and in order to get things done that need to be done you have to apply pressure in the right way to overcome a certain amount of group inertia. Those things still fit with the metaphor without necessarily being disrespectful.

[wpm]

They should stop acting so much like sheep then.

[unnamed76ri]

I have a relative that has a border collie and the thing has got to have the dog version of Down syndrome.

This dog does the worst job of being a dog that I’ve ever seen.

[testaccount28]

they did not call their coworkers sheep, though.

a border collie can nip the heels of humans just as well.