As an hourly employee, I’m not a terrible fan of snow days.  Like most closings, it simply a way of saying “try and get 40 hours in now, bitch” while the full-time staff blows a holiday to make-up the difference.  Late openings are a different beast entirely as the calculus of presence changes.  If one shows up and one’s supervisor doesn’t, the work time is entirely unverifiable.  Alternatively, some may expect their wards to arrive on time in spite of the delay and yet others use it as an excuse to try to force time out of people later.  So, what was the outcome of the snow day roulette?  By some stroke of amazing luck all three of four of the full time office members were sick today.  What are the odds of this happening?  I wanted to find out:

The average American gets 1.7 colds a year lasting on average 3 days generate 2.8 sickdays a year.  Let’s assume most colds come in a 4-month window and that colds that are start at the same time are independent of one another.  What’s that come out to?  About 0.00041%.  Sure glad I trudged through the snow to get in my time and to see that statistical miracle.