Survey says... just about everything these days

Late last week I attended a breakfast at Elmhurst College. The breakfast was provided as a reward to persons who'd volunteered as mentors, provided internships, interviewed students for actual post-graduation jobs, or otherwise participated in the school's professional development program. (I was invited because I had participated in one panel discussion for pre-law students -- no, it wasn't much of a contribution -- but, then, I took only one small sweet roll and a cup of coffee at the breakfast, so I wasn't dramatically over-compensated.)

Anyway, the college used the breakfast to roll out a portion of a survey it had commissioned from some international research group, trying to find out what Elmhurst students were looking for in a job or career, what they valued in an employer, how they responded to different sorts of interviews, and how Elmhurst students were the same as (and different from) their counterparts in other schools around the country.

I was, as usual, confused by all this. Who cares what employers are most "attractive" to college students? Sophomores in college may imagine themselves able to choose from among a variety of civic-minded corporate citizens for their future career. College seniors are grateful to find a job, any job, even with the Warts-And-All Corporation, particularly if said job pays enough to make the payments on their student loans. After a few months on the couch back home, college graduates may find hitherto unimagined virtues in an offer, any offer, even from Polluters-R-Us.

I don't understand the value of uninformed opinions. After all, we lawyers wait until after jurors have heard the evidence before we ask them what they thought of our case. (Yes, yes, we begin 'educating' prospective jurors about our view of the case in voir dire -- but that merely proves my point: From the beginning of our trials we do our best to create informed jurors, informed as we would have them informed, whose properly informed opinions will, therefore, be favorable to us when we seek those opinions at the end of the case.)

Anyway, I don't understand surveys generally.

I have come to the conclusion that this may be a generational thing.

As a Baby Boomer, reared on the wit and wisdom of Mike Royko, I was taught to never answer a pollster and, if forced to answer, to lie.

My Millennial children, on the other hand, will not make any significant purchase without scouring the on-line reviews.

I have attempted to see what they see in these. But what I've seen, when I've read on-line reviews, are wildly divergent statements, half apparently written by the seller's mother, half written by the seller's competitors.

And one cannot buy so much as a package of shoelaces without being invited to participate in a survey about the quality of the service provided.

I generally decline the invitation. I paid for the shoelaces, didn't I? If I don't return them, my opinion of them must have been favorable, right? If I return to the store, whether for more shoelaces, or for wholly different sundries, doesn't that alone say something about my opinion of the service provided?

I don't understand why we care so much about what people say they think. It seems to me so much more important to look at what people do. I don't care if my client says that I am the greatest lawyer since Darrow -- what really matters to me is whether said client honors my bill upon presentation.

In other words, I understand data-gathering and using that data to predict how people may behave in future. But I see only the most limited value in surveying people about their actions, or their opinions. Because people lie, often to themselves. They may say what they think their questioner may want to hear (or, if they are the contrary sort, what they think the questioner may not want to hear). It has been my observation that people often say one thing, but do another.

This is a topic I earnestly wish to discuss with people who live and die with surveys. Like political consultants. It is a topic I hope to return to at a future date.