Friday, May 28, 2010

Math fail

I'm doing an online medical research survey this morning. It began with this message:

"The study consists of 3 sections, each of which is 15 minutes in length. The study will therefore take 1 hour to complete."

13 comments:

  1. Perhaps they were factoring in a 15-minute break for you too? That would have been very thoughtful, but not likely.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Deb's correct. there is a five-minute breather scheduled before you begin and then between sections. You know, because those surveys are sooooo stressful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That includes 15 minutes for banging your head on your desk.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's just enough time to go to the break room and enjoy a Diet Coke before the final section.

    ReplyDelete
  5. They figure you're going to get paged 3 times while filling out the survey.

    Or, more likely, you're right. They're just bad at math. And they probably just bought a lot of lottery tickets, too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Maybe they factored in your prostate size and the amount of bathroom breaks would be needed:)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sounds like lawyers' time. You know, charge an hour's fee for 45 minutes work.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Clearly, further research is required!

    ReplyDelete
  9. sounds like someone had more trouble with algebra than I ever dreamed of having!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm thinking it's sort of like in football, you know, where it takes four hours to play exactly one hour of real playing time. Maybe not as long. Or like a TV show where you get 40 minutes of show and 20 minutes of commercials.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That includes 15 min to write your name and SSN. Because with only an MD, you can't be expected to pull that off quickly.

    On the other hand, I have yet to do a CME that takes me even 1/3of the allotted time.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I just started doing an online survey [mine are usually about computers, go figure :-)].

    First it asked me a bunch of questions like "True/False: People come to me for help with computers."

    Then when I hit next it asked:

    "Do you use a computer?

    Yes No"


    I'd show you a screenshot but my craptastic Windoze box crashes when I try to paste one. YAY.

    ReplyDelete
  13. P.S. Don't worry. I'm not the one who will evaluate the survey.

    ReplyDelete

So wadda you think?