Question 16.3.1: Bev Johnson’s sales at her deli grew rapidly and she now has......
Bev Johnson’s sales at her deli grew rapidly and she now has 7 employees. She promises them that each can work about the same number of hours each month, but one employee complains that she worked considerably more hours than the others. The number of hours worked by each of the seven employees during the past month are given. Find the mean to the nearest hour.
75, 63, 76, 82, 70, 81, 149
Add the numbers and divide by 7, since there are 7 numbers. Check that the sum of the numbers is 596.
The mean of 85 seems too high, since one employee clearly worked many more hours than the other six employees. The mean without this value of 149 is the sum of the remaining 6 numbers divided by 6.
Mean = \frac{\mathbf{447}}{6} = 74.5
This value seems more in line with the average number of hours worked. Perhaps there was an unusual reason the one employee worked 149 hours (e.g., someone else was sick and could not work.)