Yet another reason working in an office is the soul sucking endeavor everyone makes it out to be. A new study released by Nationwide found that the average worker in Britain spends £1,003 ($1,214) at work each year. Though small, the costs of all those birthday cards, lunches, and stationary start to add up fast. You know what else adds up? The shitty return on investment from the £60.36 ($73) spent yearly on getting coworkers coffee and tea.
The study surveyed 2,000 office workers across the United Kingdom on their intra-office purchasing habits. The £60.36 spent annually on other peoples’ coffee and tea was the fifth highest of the 17 categories in the survey, bested only by birthdays, Christmas parties/lunch/dinner, post-work drinks/nights out with colleagues, and clothes and bags.
Over the course of a career—which Nationwide estimates to be 40 years—the total spent on coffee and tea you don’t even get to drink reached £2,414 ($2,913).
And the worst part is, you’re definitely getting the short end of the coffee run stick. Never mind the fact that your turns are spent at your specialty cafe of choice when everyone else is just going to the nearest coffee chain. But as a person of discrimination and taste, you probably aren’t ordering any milk drinks because you know they’ll be completely dead by the time Landon gets back from taking his sweet ass time not respecting the beverages he was tasked with picking up. And maybe you ask for a pour over, but Landon won’t remember. And if he does, he’s just going to get you a drip coffee because what’s the big diff anyway right? So you end up getting a $1.50 cup of drip even though you’re shelling out $5 a pop making sure those lattes are soy-based and have an extra pump of vanilla.
The way I see it, you have two options. You could continue to hump that shitty desk job where your only respite from dying slowly in your cubicle (or even worse, your open concept office where you can’t even goof off in peace) is spending $3,000 in some sort of unfair coffee alchemy. Or, you could follow your dream and open your own coffee shop where you get to play by your own rules. No Landons allowed. Just think about it.
Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.
*top image via I Love Coffee
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