How many times have you got up to make tea or coffee for colleagues today? Well if you’re reading this and you’re male the chances are not as often as your female counterparts.
New research, commissioned on behalf of Cafedirect, found that every week female office workers are getting up to make a brew three times more on average than their male workmates. The study also revealed men’s underhand tactics for avoiding doing their fair share of tea rounds included inventing impending deadlines, meetings, fake phone calls and even sporting injuries. Men are also guilty of arguing for an extra 30 seconds longer than women over whose turn it is to put the kettle on. Other findings include:
- 46% of females admit to using the office tea break as a way to avoid work
- One in four workers confess to harbouring ill will towards their colleagues who rarely take turns in the tea round
- 44% of women say they have purposefully made a tasteless cup of tea to avoid being asked to make it again
- Four in ten arguments in the workplace are started as a result of someone making themselves a cuppa and failing to fetch something for colleagues at the same time
Who’d have thought a cup of tea could be so contentious? We want to hear your experiences of the office tea round. Are you expected to cater for your boss or visitors, does the boss take on his fair share of making tea and have you ever used underhand tactics to get out of making a cuppa?
