Opinion: Technology creates roaming offices

Percentage of knowledge workers who read, send, make or take work-related communications in nonwork situations: 92

Percentage who still tune in to the office while on vacation: 45

Percentage who have interrupted a date for work purposes: 20

Instant communication

Percentage of employees who use instant messengers at work, according to a survey conducted by the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute: 35

Percentage of those employees who have used IMs to send or receive content such as jokes, gossip, rumors and disparaging remarks: 24

Percentage of employers who have an IM policy in place: 31

Same job, new title

Percentage of recently promoted executives who said that their responsibilities have remained roughly the same despite their new titles, according to a survey by Korn/Ferry International: 46

Percentage who said that a bigger job title would not entice them to stay at a job that they would otherwise leave: 85

Trust us

Percentage of Swedes who said they have “much or very much trust” in the IKEA furniture store company, according to the business weekly magazine Dagens Industri: 80

Percentage of Swedes who said they have “much or very much trust” in Volvo: 69

Percentage of Swedes who have “much or very much trust” in the Swedish church: 46

Working off steam

Percentage of U.S. retail employees who say that being scheduled to work on a day they asked off negatively affects their job performance, according to a study conducted for Kronos Inc.: 43

Mental health bill

Percentage of the adult U.S. population who are afflicted with anxiety disorders, according to the National Institute of Mental Health: 18.1

Estimated annual cost to the United States, according to “The Economic Burden of Anxiety Disorders,” a study commissioned by the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and based on data gathered by the association and published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry: $42 billion

Estimated annual total mental health bill for the United States: $148 billion

Safe surfing

Percentage of U.S. consumers who did not feel any safer computing online in 2006 compared to 2005, according to a survey conducted for Check Point Software Technologies: 84

Winning business

Percentage of lawyers who ranked reliability and trust as the most important factors in winning repeat business from clients, according to a survey developed by Robert Half Legal: 45

Percentage who said their relationship with the client: 20

Percentage who said “industry-specific knowledge:” 14

Percentage who said bill rates: 7

Godly thoughts

Percentage of all U.S. adults who say they are not “absolutely certain” there is a God, according to a Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive: 42

Percentage of adults who think of God as male: 36

Percentage of adults who think of God as female: 1

Breeding business

Estimated number of breeds in FAO’s global database of farm animal genetic resources, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: 7,600

Number of breeds that have become extinct in the past 15 years: 190

Number of breeds that are considered at risk of extinction: 1,500

Estimated number of breeds of cattle, goats, pigs, horses and poultry that have been lost over the last five years: 60

Idle Thought

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.” -Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer

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.