Idling Times
How long do people idle their parked cars after starting them? Two seconds? Twenty seconds? Two hundred seconds? Who knew? One day, the bosses realized we didn't have good data regarding this burning question.

To find the answer, my bosses sent my officemate out with a clipboard and a stopwatch to stand at the edge of a parking lot and observe people starting their cars.

It's astonishing how skittish people are! Despite the comforting camouflage of office attire, people eyed my friend warily long before they even reached the parking lot. Bug-eyed drivers burned rubber to get the hell out of what they feared might be a trap.

Rubbish data all duly recorded, of course. More surreptitious methods eventually were adopted.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 21:38, Reply)