Work isn’t the wolf and you can’t run away from home – that’s the opinion most workers share, according to statistics. The list of activities that workers are successfully engaging in.
Work be careful what you do in the forest – this is the opinion most workers share, according to statistics. The list of activities, which workers are successfully engaging in, while their bosses are busy with more important things, is frankly impressive: our people are used to fighting boredom with enviable persistence.
A large-scale survey showed that only 33% of workers are hard at work. Most likely, these people constitute the well-known Pareto’s category of 20%, which besides its own duties also burdens the work of the remaining 80% of colleagues. The remaining 67% of workers, on the other hand, seem to know a lot about relaxation and entertainment.
The most harmless and common ways to relieve boredom at work are chatting with colleagues, playing solitaire games and flash games, which are actively practiced by 9% of respondents.
An honourable second place among entertainment at the expense of the employer was occupied by communication with friends in messenger programs: ICQ, Skype and others. Those who are not attracted to chit chatting prefer to plunge headlong into reading. Statistics show that texting fans and fiction fans account for 7% of the total number of participants in the survey.
If you’ve wondered why the conversation hasn’t yet turned to social media, now it’s their turn. Some employers have the foresight to shut their employees off from such sites, but not everyone comes up with the idea. The mistake of the latter is actively used by 6% of employees, sitting all day on Facebook, Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. By the way, a curious fact: the most active users of social networks are women.
Another 5% of workers simply surf the Web in search of funny memes or interesting information. But among respondents there are those for whom surfing the Web in part or completely replaces another type of relaxation – regular tea drinking. As much as 4% of respondents believe that tea and coffee should be drunk as often as possible – so, they said, you can get rid of lethargy and fatigue, and it’s fine to cheer up. And to pass the extra hours, of course.
Also, “conscientious” workers simply love as often as possible to run for a break, chat on the phone, have one snack, listen to your favorite music and solve a couple of crosswords, and the luckiest even manage to watch movies.
Those who are not used to staying in one place for a long time, actively practice not only the banal exercise, but fun games. Among the latter the most popular are “war games” with rubber bands for money and badminton, which requires only books and crumpled up papers. According to respondents (mostly males) such activities were found to be very uplifting and refreshing.
To the above-mentioned entertainments we can add manicure and make-up, which the bulk of office workers are fond of, as well as shopping, walking outdoors, shopping in the Internet shops, learning foreign languages and simply studying, downloading music, films and games, a second job and just plain idleness. All these activities are preferred by 15% of respondents.
Another 3% can easily play cards – gambling is preferred by employees who do not have access to the internet and working routine in most cases does not take place in the office.
The most sophisticated and even extreme ways to relax were not spared – some respondents managed not only to drink alcohol, but also have sex in the midst of the working day. Statistically, 2% of respondents prefer to use the opportunity to “work out” in a pleasant way. It is likely that the number of those who like to “do it” within the walls of the native office is much greater, but not all of them will admit to such juicy details of their intimate life.
15% of respondents could not identify any particular way to brighten up dull workdays.
As you can see, getting rid of boredom is easy. It is more difficult not to “play too hard to get”, so that seemingly harmless entertainment does not lead to very unfortunate consequences. Remember, bosses are human beings too, and sometimes they see a lot more than meets the eye.
