I love The Onion. This quote is too long, but I couldn't bring myself to make it shorter:
Study Finds Working At Work Improves Productivity
According to a groundbreaking new study by the Department of Labor, working—the physical act of engaging in a productive job-related activity—may greatly increase the amount of work accomplished during the workday, especially when compared with the more common practices of wasting time and not working.
"Our findings are astounding: By simply sitting down and doing work, employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and services," said Deputy Undersecretary of Labor Charlotte Ponticelli, who authored the report. "In fact, 'working' may revolutionize the way people work."
Perhaps even more shocking, the study reveals that not working significantly decreases worker productivity, sometimes even resulting in no work getting done at all. Similar findings were reported in the areas of avoiding work, putting off work, complaining about work instead of actually working, pretending to work, and fucking around.
"Fucking around is in fact detrimental to the work process," the study reads in part.
Guess what effect stress has on sleep?
The joke is not only on workplace diversions, but also on scientific studies with painfully obvious findings. Like this one, in a November 6 press release:
Stress and Anxiety Interfere With Sleep
Seven out of ten adults in the United States say they experience stress or anxiety daily, and most say it interferes at least moderately with their lives. About one-third report persistent stress or excessive anxiety daily or that they have had an anxiety or panic attack. Seven out of ten of those adults say they have trouble sleeping.
These are among the findings of the 2007 Stress & Anxiety Disorders Survey, a report examining the effects of anxiety disorders and everyday stress and anxiety on sleep. The survey was commissioned by the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), which is sponsoring National Stress Out Week, November 11-17, 2007.
Or this one, from a press release the following day announcing that people respond more fully and honestly to open-ended than closed-ended questions:
Doctors who ask the right questions in the right way can successfully encourage abused women to reveal that they are victims of domestic violence, even in a hectic emergency department, a team of researchers from the United States and Canada has found.
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"[Q]uestions were often framed in the negative 'you aren't a victim of domestic abuse, are you?' which elicited a negative or incomplete response," said Richard Frankel, Ph.D., professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute research scientist. . . . [P]atients were more likely to disclose experiences with abuse when providers used open-ended questions to initiate the topic of domestic abuse and probed for abuse by asking at least one follow-up question.
If it's so obvious, why don't we do it?
Silly as these "duh" studies sound, there's an argument that they're as useful as any other kind. We all know that open-ended questions work better, but doctors -- and lawyers in voir dire -- keep asking the other kind, so a study reminding us how dumb those questions are may not itself be dumb. Likewise we know that stress and anxiety ruin sleep, and in turn that lack of sleep makes us think less clearly, but we don't do much to address the problem, either for ourselves or for stressed jurors in tough trials. If a "duh" study helps make the point, maybe we need more studies of the obvious.
As for the stunning productive effect of working at work, that study was long overdue.
(Photo by visualpanic at http://www.flickr.com/photos/visualpanic/268335565/; license details there.)
