Would you give up lunch breaks, coffee and alcohol to work from home? Survey says ‘yes’

Eric Pfeiffer
·Reporter

A new survey looking at trends in office life finds that the average worker isn't fond of costume parties or group photos, and would gladly give up free coffee, alcohol and even lunch breaks for the opportunity to work from home, even just once a week.

"These findings show what all of us who work in offices know—life at the office can often be challenging," said Kim DeCarlis, vice president of corporate marketing at Citrix, who commissioned Wakefield Research to conduct the survey.

"This survey shows that companies will benefit by being more flexible in allowing employees to work from anywhere. Enabling people to blend their professional and personal lives can boost morale as well as productivity," DeCarlis said.

However, the survey also found a series of hard-to-believe excuses that Americans deploy when wanting to take a "sick day" from the office, including:

  • "My bicycle ran out of gas."

  • "Gas is too expensive."

  • "I'm dieting."

So what's driving the average American worker to generate such lame excuses to avoid coming to work? As with most things, the answers differ across gender and employment status.

Men are most adverse to the office baby shower; 42 percent say that it is their "most disliked" work activity. Meanwhile, the least popular work function for women is "staff photos," according to 31 percent of respondents.

And if you thought that too obvious an answer, your co-workers probably hate you, too. After all, the most unifying negative trait among those in the survey was a "know-it-all" co-worker, dreaded by 49 percent of those surveyed. Though you might want to keep those feelings to yourself, as 44 percent also said they can't stand "whiners" in the workplace.

In perhaps the most passive-aggressive result of all, 30 percent of respondents said they scheduled their own time off around the vacations of their bosses in order to maximize the time spent apart. However, the results found this practice is more common among executives and managers (39 percent) than mid-level and junior-level employees (27 percent).

But what kind of bosses do workers actually want? Apparently, the 1,013 survey respondents prefer someone like the character Gibbs from "NCIS" (20 percent), Miranda Bailey from "Grey's Anatomy" (15 percent) and Buddy from "Cake Boss" (14 percent).

And while most workers (67 percent) say they've never had the chance to work from home, they'd be willing to give up certain office perks for the chance, including lunch breaks (32 percent), alcohol (25 percent) and coffee (20 percent).