You Can't Please Everybody All The Time

You can't please everybody all the time. That's a phrase I have to live with, being someone who produces things that people read and look at. It's an obvious statement, of course. Completely safe. Duh, of course you can't please everybody all the time. There's always someone out there who contradicts what's obvious. For example, there are those who think the Beatles are a bad rock band. Fair enough, although cracked. Some may think that Jennifer Garner is ugly, or, conversely, Tammy Faye Baker is pretty. Strange views, but within the realm of possibility. Therefore, the phrase you can't please everybody all the time is a lame excuse for any action, since it's an impossibility, so further clarification is needed of how many people exactly, by sheer number or fraction or percent, can be pleased, and also how often, similarly by fraction or percent.

Let's try to break it down. I think that there is a percentage out there that is pleased all of the time. The retarded come to mind, as do grandmothers. Note that the last-place finisher at the Special Olympics is quite happy, and Hitler's grandmother, if she was alive at the time of his greatest infamy, would probably still have made him ginger-cookies. Both groups are perpetually jovial. Therefore it is safe to say that both fall into the can please all of the time category. Let's add a few that I haven't mentioned. Little children are sometimes completely adverse to using criticism, and Paula Abdul, in her current incarnation as American Idol "judge", seems to be also. Of course there are others, but we must move on. What value can we assign this group? Let's say ten percent, or one-tenth. Let's assume that we cannot assign a true numerical value, since many people are born each second and grandmothers are dying off at a pretty high rate, the exact number fluctuates too greatly for that. One-tenth it is.

Now, the other extreme is the pleased none of the time crowd. There are Department of Motor Vehicles workers (those alone make this a fairly high percentage, because when you go into the DMV they're everywhere - Unfortunately, never at the booth of the line I stand in), who aren't pleased even if you have your forms filled out accurately. Then there are Freshmen Composition 101 teachers, and farmers. Freshmen Composition 101 teachers, especially ones like Mrs. Garcia from my ninth, tenth and eleventh grades, are brutal. They make you use punctuation. all. the. time. Farmers are worse. Good weather means more crops, but then it drives prices low. They complain. Bad weather means less crops, and therefore less money. They complain. Switch careers, already. So, what say you to this group? How about ten percent to start, to equal out the extremes a little. But let's add another five percent, due to the fact that we have a more negative than positive society as a whole. You hear all about road rage, but never about road love.

So, that covers twenty-five percent, or one-fourth. Now, about the other three-fourths? Well, easily one-fourth of the remainder is in the pleased most of the time category. Film critic Gene Shalit, he of the rampant mustache, comes to mind, as does every TGI Friday's server. There are others, too painful to name, because they're hard to be around, if I'm being honest.

An equal fraction is in the pleased almost none of the time area. Football coaches are an obvious choice. Take this dialogue as an example:

Coach: Johnson, you dumbass
Player: Are you talking to me, coach?
Coach: Didn't you see Jones was open?
Player: But Nelson was open, coach.
Coach: But you didn't see Jones open, did you?
Player: Coach, Nelson was open, in the end zone.
Coach: Don't lip me, son. Jones was open. We went over the play at practice.
Player: But Nelson caught it, coach.
Coach: Did you even look at Jones during the play, you incompetent asshole? [spittle flies]
Player: Yes, but I saw Nelson was open. We scored a touchdown, coach.
Coach: Eh?
Player: We scored a touchdown! Woo!
Coach: We did?
Player: We scored a touchdown! We just won the Superbowl! [pours Gatorade on coach's head]
Coach: Good job, Johnson. [pats player on rump]
Player: Thanks, coach! [runs toward sideline reporter for interview]
Coach: Asshole.

If you know anything about football, then you must know that every high school boy plays it, plus there are Pop Warner leagues and city leagues and such. How many football coaches are there? Oh, it's safe to say that the number is in the millions. Add a few others that fall into this category (car mechanics, drill sergeants, Democrats) and pleased almost none of the time makes another one-fourth of that remaining seventy-five percent.

That leaves us with thirty-seven point five percent of the population that we still need to ascertain where they fall on the pleasing scale. Twenty percent of the whole population, or one-fifth, falls into the true neutral zone, with nothing really pleasing or displeasing them. They exist in a state of emotional equilibrium. Gas station attendants, phone operators, people who work in beer-bottling factories (recall the opening of Laverne and Shirley), and my neighbor Ron are all good examples. If they're pleased or not, you just can't tell. A wildcard of sorts, that makes sure you never get a hundred percent satisfaction from anything you do. It's society's way of beating us down.

Anyway, that leaves us with seventeen point five percent, or seven fortieths, in simplest terms. Half of them are in the more pleased than not pleased, and the other half are in the more not pleased than pleased. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, one-third of each half looks like they're in the opposite group (someone who looks more pleased than not pleased, but is actually more not pleased than pleased, and vice versa). This makes our statistics, and therefore our saying, more difficult, but we'll muddle through.
Where does this leave us? I think it's quite clear. I'll sum it up this way with this new saying:

"You can't please everybody all of the time. More specifically, you can't please three-twentieths at all, but at least you can please one-tenth all the time. Three-sixteenths are a longshot to please, unless you do something spectacular, like bend a spoon with your mind, but thankfully you'd have to stab another three-sixteenths to get them to not like you, so it evens out some. Seven-eightieths will be pleased with you more times than not, but conversely another seven-eightieths will be displeased more times than not. And, lastly, one-fifth will not give you enough feedback for accurate analysis, no matter what you do."

Or, even more scientifically, there is a 68% chance that you can expect to please an amount of people (represented by x) that will be clustered around the mean with a standard deviation of approximately 1.42, if positive, but if negative, you can expect x to be clustered around the mean with a standard deviation of 1.37 in regards to not pleasing.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

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