Phoning it in

I noticed this as a headline on the Yahoo front page: "Survey: A third of U.S. workers admit calling in fake sick days."

What does this indicate about our nation's workforce?

A third of U.S. workers are too stupid to lie when surveyed about faking calling in sick.

Ba-dump-chik! Thank you. I do two shows on Sunday. Tip your servers--they're working hard out there. (And they don't get sick pay so they don't call in sick.)

~

The story reveals that these results are based on surveying around 10,000 individuals (nearly 3,400 hiring managers and under 6,900 full-time workers). In a country of over 305 million, that fraction of a percent (about .003, if my math is correct) represents all of us.

However, there's a key problem with that extrapolation. They don't represent most Americans, for one simple reason: Most Americans don't bother replying to surveys.

Therefore, the real conclusion: A third of people who like to respond to surveys will admit to feigning illness to get out of working.

Which, I will admit, is brave, considering how lousy the economy is; now would not be a good time to get fired for pretending to be sick.

So, revised conclusion: A third of people who like to respond to surveys don't really need their jobs (perhaps because they have trust funds and were merely working as a lark).

It's all about knowing how to interpret the data.