I signed up for every marketing survey in town when I was poor(er) so I make some extra cash on the side. Some are little one shot taste tests that take 25 minutes, others are multiple visit trials, but there is nothing more barely worth your time for the money than a focus group. Why? Other people.
There are several types, like one of my faves – person who dominates the whole group. This is person, usually adult male, who decides his opinion is so great, no one else should talk. This is fine, except intelligence and consideration of the time constraints are not pre-reqs. There were two at my last one. Luckily they were thrown off just enough by the “Oh, I was supposed to pay attention? Eh! I’ll just talk about whatever pops into my head” lady. At one point we were discussing fast food and she was talking for three minutes about her grandkids’ soccer games. I blacked out a little.
I was good to go except about seven minutes in, I noticed the lady across from me was breathing really heavy and shaking her leg. She was rather large, thus large chested, so I saw a lot of jiggling and heard what sounded like Darth Vader. Apparently, the sitting down for two hours was very exhausting because the breathing went from maybe sounding like a cold to an hour on an uphill treadmill. If you’re big enough where sitting is a track and field event, you better start filling out a will.