The popular War Stories column, which presents humorous tales of life in the research trenches, has historically been compiled by Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research in Van Nuys, Calif. Each month in our e-newsletters we feature anecdotes from past War Stories columns and over time, we have received a handful of submissions from our e-newsletter readers who want to share their own outlandish or otherwise entertaining experiences of research gone just-slightly awry. Submit your own War Story today!

In one focus group, Linda Fitzpatrick began with introductions. The first four women described their young families - names and ages of kids, their husbands, their jobs. One childless woman told a funny story about her dogs. Then another respondent, Bertha, introduced herself: "Got no kids. Got no husband. Got no pets. Got no problems."

 

Donna Tinari-Siegfried was conducting a focus group, and one of the respondents, with an enormous black bag slung over her shoulders, introduced herself as a surgeon. As Tinari-Siegfried was getting into the main topic of the session, the surgeon was paged. She needed to use a telephone immediately and left the room to make her call.

Suddenly, Tinari-Siegfried's eye was caught by movement on the floor. She glanced over and there, looking up at her, was a little dog! All the respondents took a look in the same direction and one of them yelled, "There's a dog in the room!" Tinari-Siegfried could hear the back room break out in hysterics.

Just then, the surgeon came through the door, having completed her call, scooped up the dog up and put it back into the enormous black bag.
 

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