Is everyone else's job really so amazing that they can't bear the thought of a few days off to listen to testimony and pronounce on a verdict? I don't buy it. I feel like as a society we've coordinated on a pointless anti-social norm that you're some kind of sucker if you're willing to just smile and do what the judge wants even though there are no really good self-interested reasons to want out. For salaried professionals, jury duty is a paid vacation.

Josh Barro enlightens Matt:

If you’re just one interchangeable cog in a corporate or government machine, maybe you can sit on a jury and let your workload fall to your co-workers. But for a lot of salaried professionals, jury duty means being at the courthouse from 8 to 4 and then going into the office to attend to a slew of matters that only you are equipped to handle.