Pretty lightweight write-up this week, but don’t hold it against me. I have to drive 6 hours to pick up my daughter at summer camp and it’s hard to write while driving through the Catskills. So, give me a break.
Here are a couple things we are seeing this week:
Workplace happiness appears to follow a predictable, seasonal pattern. For consecutive years, people reported their lowest rate of happiness in their jobs during the month of April, then rebounding to the highest levels of job happiness in June, then declining ever-so-slightly in July and beyond. I get the June happiness peak. Summer’s starting. Friday Happy Hours are outside. That jerk, Greg in accounting, is on a two-week vacation. But why the big drop in April? Is it tax season? All the rain? I’m not 100% sure. I’d love to hear your theories on that.
People don’t cut their own grass like they used to. This quarter we saw the lowest percentage of Americans who say they maintain/care for their own lawns since we started tracking the behavior five years ago. From a high point of 60% in early 2013, the number of DIY lawn maintainers fell to just 44% of the U.S. adult population in the past quarter.
Some Random Sandwiched Stats of the Week:
When eating a sandwich…
• 53% of people prefer to cut them diagonally.
• 27% prefer to cut them straight across.
• 18% prefer to not cut their sandwiches at all.
• 2% of people don’t eat sandwiches and, also, can’t be trusted.
When making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…
• 75% of people use one knife to spread both.
• 22% use two knives.
75% of men and 66% of women prefer sandwiches over wraps.
All advertising exposure is not always good advertising exposure. This is something I’d never thought much about before. According to one of our recent studies, 23% of U.S. adults say they are currently refraining from purchasing a product – that they used to buy – because of an ad campaign that turned them off. Another 27% of people claim they have done this in the past. As we spend so much time trying to measure “impressions” and “views,” we don’t account for the fact that some ads may be more doing more harm than good.
More profoundly-important CivicScience research presented without comment:
Hoping you’re well.
JD