🤬 Can’t spell traffic without two f-bombs

It’s time to retire that old “Rip the Band-Aid off” idiom. Seems nobody is in a huge rush to get rid of their Band-Aids.

The first-aid aider topped decision intelligence company Morning Consult’s annual Most Trusted Brands report.

The Johnson & Johnson-owned bandage brand stuck it to all other US brands for a second straight year, besting other top-five finishers UPS, Amazon, Lysol, and Kleenex.

Band-Aid wasn’t a hit with everyone…

… The exception being Gen Z; they don’t trust a damn thing.

The survey calculated net trust ratings — the share of people who say they trust brands “to do the right thing” minus the share who don’t — for 1.5k+ popular companies.

On average, Gen X and baby boomers were the most trusting (~22%), with millennials slightly less trusting (~19%). Those low numbers would’ve been wounding enough.

Then Gen Z lifted those Band-Aids right off and poured salt right on: Their net trust rating was ~11%.

Are the kids alright?

A generous view here suggests they’re new consumers who haven’t had time to build trust with companies yet.

But we’ll take a colder, more realistic track: This is a generation that distrusts, well, nearly everything — from higher education to state and local governments. They barely even trust doctors.

• Nonprofits were the only category of brands Gen Z responded well to. This checks out; they also volunteer at the highest rates of any generation.

Translation: Institutions of all kinds, including corporate America, have a lot of trust-building work ahead if they want to unlock Gen Z’s spending power.

BTW: Who else has customers’ faith? (At least among older Americans.) Rounding out the top 10: Cheerios, Visa, Dove, The Weather Channel, and FedEx.

The WFH vs. return-to-office debate has been raging for months now with little give from either side. Yet it may not be the office remote workers dread, but everything else. Namely:

• Spending money
• Getting there

It adds up

Employees say they’re spending up to $45 more per day they go into the office, per Insider. Consider:

• Office clothes: Refreshing a business-casual wardrobe costs more than wearing your favorite sweats all day.
• Coffee and lunch: You can prep ahead — supposing you have time or don’t feel pressured to join co-workers for meals, coffee, or happy hours.
• Child care, which can eat up 8%-19.3% of a family’s median income per child, per the US Department of Labor.
• Commuting: Gas, car maintenance, public transit fare, etc.

Speaking of commuting…

… It’s a serious gripe. Most workers don’t get paid for their commute and it can be pretty stressful.

In an op-ed for The New York Times, Farhad Manjoo noted that numerous surveys have found commuting to be the biggest return-to-office pain point.

Americans yet to return to their daily commutes are saving 60m hours per day collectively, which they spend on fulfilling tasks while experiencing record-high job satisfaction.

That’s also fewer cars on the road — a positive for traffic and the environment.

Bottom line: We may need to rethink the way offices are set up if bosses want people back in them. Of course, that would take an overhaul of some pretty big systems and infrastructure — roads, public transit, child care —  so, uh… good luck, bosses.