36% of U.S. workers believe managers honest

Percentage of Chinese consumers that say they would rate the quality of manufactured goods produced in China as excellent/very good, according to a 2004 Gallup poll conducted in China’s three largest cities: 15
Percentage of Chinese consumers that say they would rate the quality of manufactured goods produced in the U.S. as excellent/very good: 38
Percentage of Chinese consumers that say they would rate the quality of manufactured goods produced in Japan as excellent/very good: 45

Percentage of workers in America who believe their managers act with honesty and integrity, according to a survey conducted for Age Wave and the Concours Group: 36
Percentage who believe that management cares about advancing employee skills: 29
Percentage who feel they have reached a dead end at their jobs: 33

Percentage of people who ranked calling in sick and sleeping as their number one secret guilty pleasure, according to a survey by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.: 32

Percentage of frequent flyers who say they avoid talkative seatmates by reading, according to a survey by United Mileage Plus Visa: 49
Percentage who put on earphones: 41
Percentage who pretend to sleep: 27
Percentage who get up: 19

Amount of annual income it would take to compensate for the same amount of happiness a marriage brings, according to economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald of Dartmouth College: $100,000

Percentage of computer users who use their computers mostly at work who say they wished they knew how to use the function keys, according to a survey by Logitech: 35
Percentage who wished it was easier to find the important keys without having to look at the keyboard: 40

Number of laptop computers that were left in taxis of one large taxi company in Chicago in the last six months of 2004, according to a survey of taxi drivers by the global security firm Pointsec: 4,425
Number of handheld computers left in taxis: 21,640
Number of mobile phones left behind: 85,619

Number of charity campaigns in New York last year that used professional telemarketing fund-raisers, according to the annual Pennies for Charity report released by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer: 92
Amount raised by these charity campaigns: $187.4 million
Amount received by charities minus fund-raising fees, commissions, and costs: $63 million.

Percentage of executive recruiters who say that the
ability to speak more than one language is critical to
succeed in business in Europe, Asia/Pacific, and
Latin America, according to a survey by Korn/Ferry International: 88
Rank of Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese as the foreign language most in demand in North America: 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
Percentage of recruiters in Europe who said being bi/multilingual was more important than having an advanced degree (e.g. M.B.A., Law, Ph.D.): 42

John MacIntyre is an author and former city magazine editor. His Figuratively Speaking column, launched in 1989, is published in more than 40 newspapers and magazines.