Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Survey: Chances are, you're a slacker PRINCETON, N.J., Feb. 9 (UPI) -- New Jersey's Gallup polling group says a new survey shows 71 percent of U.S. workers are "not engaged" in their work. Advertisement These folks range from the unproductive clock-watcher to the corporate saboteur, said Curt Coffman of Gallup. Coffman's conclusions are based on detailed quarterly surveys of 1,000 to 1,200 employees over the last 2 1/2 years. "The longer employees stay with a company, the more disengaged they become," said Coffman. Most employees do their best work in their first six months. They start with the best of intentions, but before long they engage in useless tasks, the Denver Post reported Monday. "I started working 6 1/2-hour days and I had no problem taking two-hour lunches," said one slacker. Other slackers are malicious. One woman who worked at an optometrist center told Coffman she made every customer aware of a not-so-widely distributed 50 percent discount coupon for eyeglasses for the sole purpose of killing revenue. Advertisement A dose of opera for Miami noise violators MIAMI, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A Miami judge has devised a plan to punish offenders who play their car stereos too loudly by insisting they join him in his chambers and listen to opera. Judge Jeffrey Swartz's philosophy is simple: "You impose your music on me, and I'm going to impose my music on you." This week, Gene Tary and Joseph Puerto will join the judge for opera in exchange for having their cases dismissed and to avoid a $460 fine. "You're a lucky man, you're going to be listening to 'La traviata.'" Swartz said to Tary, as reported by the Times of London Monday. "Never heard of it," said Tary, "but it sounds good." Puerto, who admitted he is no opera fan, figures listening to a little opera beats a fine. "The only time I heard opera before was in a James Bond movie," Puerto said, "and that was only for about two seconds." Swartz came up with the unique punishment for noise violations after stopping at a red light next to a car playing music so loud that "my car windows were rattling, I could hear the bolts loosening in the engine well," Swartz said. Advertisement A serious book about Homer Simpson HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky., Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A Northern Kentucky University professor thinks Homer Simpson and his world are worth studying. "Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibilities of Oppositional Culture," by Professor John Alberti, is a collection of essays analyzing "The Simpsons" television show. Many of the essays play off the idea that, because "The Simpsons" are a cartoon, they are free from the typical constraints of live-action television, both visually and ideologically, the Cincinnati Post reports. One especially popular theme in the essays is the way in which the show promotes "its status as Fox corporate product, while denigrating the Fox network and its corporate holdings, to the point even of suggesting viewers turn to other networks as soon as 'The Simpsons' is over," Alberti wrote in the book's introduction. Brits vote 80s their favorite decade LONDON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Despite obvious cultural low points, such as leg warmers, yuppies and shoulder pads, a British poll shows the 1980s is the most missed period of modern times. Other results of the poll show the 60s had the best music and fashion, while the greatest films came from the 90s, according to the poll by Warner Breaks Just For Adults published in The Mirror Monday. Advertisement Boy George had the top 80s song with Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon," followed by Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax," "With or Without You" by U2 and Duran Duran's "Rio." "ET" was voted best film, ahead of "Back to the Future," "Top Gun," "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Batman." The most unforgettable moment of the decade was the Band Aid concert, followed by the collapse of the Berlin Wall and John Lennon's assassination.
