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Playing Hooky to Watch Star Wars
Ant sent us
an amusing little story that guesstimates how many people
will skip
work to watch Star Wars this May. I'll be at LinuxExpo.
If we don't have some sort of organized Star-Wars-Event at the
Expo, I'll probably simply combust.
As much of a fan as I am, I think I'll wait a couple of days.
Kinda want to avoid the initial weirdo night. Don't want to have a conversation with a wookie.
Misfit
Did you look at how these stats were computed? They took the estimated number of people who went to Jurassic Park during it's opening (Jurassic park also had very wide release and McDonald's hype behind it) and then mutliplied that by 46% (apparently the percentage of the population that is employed full time --man, I didn't realize it was that low).
That statistic therefore assume that NONE of the full time employees will even consider the fact that they supposed to be at work as a factor when deciding when to go see the movie. How ludicrous is that? At least they could have looked at demographics for absenteeism during Jurassic Park, or better still phone polled around.
The worst part is that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that this story is making the rounds, people are going to have the attitude of, "that's a great idea, and since everyone else is doing it...."
sigs are a waste of space
As the article points out, the figure is almost certainly inflated since most showings are in the evening. I also suspect that opening day crowds for Star Wars will be disproportionately students, who won't be missing work at all, but missing their valuable education (class hours missed... now that would be an interesting estimate).
Finally, "lost productivity" is a misleading figure. If people miss work, they will either not be paid or they will take sick days or vacation days they would have used some other time. So the loss in productivity is offset by lower pay or increase in productivity at a later time. While there will likely be some loss in profits for certain businesses who lose a critical mass of workers, $264 million is clearly too large a figure.
"L'IT c'est moi!"
... then we'd have an equation that meant absolutely NOTHING, because all of the numbers in it are just made up!!
Honestly. Sheesh.
Leilah (going at night, thank you.)
~ Leilah
Besides the concerns that others have raised here about the validity of this firm's 'statistical methods' (I'll bet any professional statistician would be embarassed to death to be connected with their methods), the entire tone of their pronouncement reminds me of what rubs me the wrong way about Corporate America these days.
The entire idea seems to be that act of employment means that the employee's entire life to be lived at the employer's pleasure... that any time spent away from work represents 'lost productivity'. What a crock of shinola!!! Sorry, I was under the misguided impression that if you have personal days or vacation days, what you do with them is up to YOU.
I wonder if this excrement for brains outfit has ever done a study on EXTRA productivity gained when technology workers put in nutty hours trying to complete almost impossible projects on insane deadlines and stupid budgets, orignally proposed by moronic bosses... nahh, thought not...
I think there will be a lot of kids skipping school along with their parents skipping work.
Me and about all my friends are skipping school that day to buy tickets. already talked it over with my parents and they're letting me, even writing an excuse.
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." --Saul Belloe
I already proposed to my boss the reasons why we should all take a "long lunch" that day and he couldn't find fault with my proposal.
Everyone will either call in sick (thereby losing a whole day of work) or be pissed that they couldn't go. So losing the three hours for 10 people in the office to go see it (and paying for the movie too) is actually less damaging on the business and a great moral boost. The biggest winner is that it makes him points with the tech. guys and he's not just a "suit" anymore - he's one of the "guys".
Jack