Men Trick Women into Making Tea, Survey Reveals

The best way to socialize at work is around a steaming cup of coffee or, according to preferences, tea. While both men and women admit to indulging in this pastime in order to be able to catch up with office gossip, the former are going to great lengths in order to get out of the task of making tea, a new survey conducted in the UK and cited by the Telegraph reveals.

The poll was conducted on 3,000 workers by Cafedirect, and shows that men would do almost anything to get out of making a drink for their work mates, including using special tactics to trick women into doing the job for them. As such, women make about three times the quantity of tea men make in a week over the same interval. Moreover, the findings of the survey also reveal that, while enjoying a cup of tea with colleagues should be something enjoyable, it can often lead to brawls at the workplace.

“Almost half (46 per cent) [of women] admit to using the office brew as a chance to bunk off work, while a quarter reveal their apparent act of generosity is merely a cover for sharing office gossip with colleagues. Some workers deliberately made a poor cup in a bid to avoid making any more, according to the report, launched at the start of Fairtrade fortnight. Recruitment consultants – the UK’s biggest tea drinkers – generally spend almost as long moaning about tea (four minutes) as making it (five minutes),” the Telegraph writes of the findings of the poll.

“Overall, two thirds of colleagues dispute whose turn it is to make the tea once a day, with 24 per cent saying it’s led them to secretly harbor bad thoughts towards those who haven’t pulled their weight,” the publication further says. Anne MacCaig, Cafedirect chief executive, confirms this, adding, “As office politics goes, the humble tea round would seem an unlikely cause of controversy but, with some making markedly more tea than others, workers are coming to blows over brews.”

That is to say, making a cup of tea can often lead to resentment, especially if put in a position when this is the last thing one would want.