If you don’t have a ‘work wife’ in Ireland, you’re in a very tiny minority.
That’s according to new research by Subway just in time for Valentine’s Day, research that reveals that a whopping 96% of Irish employees have what’s known as a ‘work wife’.
The term hardly needs explanation, but in case you don’t have a clue, it refers to someone of either gender within your workplace with whom you share a platonic yet highly supportive friendship.
The survey of over 600 workers not only revealed that the vast majority of Irish employees have a work wife, it also revealed that two-thirds of Irish employees spend more time with said work wife than they do with their real-life partners.
That’s perhaps understandable when you spend 40 or so hours a week in their company, but when you start organising lunch and dinner dates at weekends on top of it, then surely the significant other has just cause to be worried about the relationship.
According to the research, one in five Irish workers plan on treating their other half in the office on Valentine’s Day, while the key characteristics of the work wife relationship include shared jokes or gossip (93%), support and advice on work matters (88%), and regular lunches (68%).
66% of respondents, meanwhile, said that they are less likely to argue with their work wife than their real-life spouse or partner, with a little over a third of workers (39%) revealing they have never fallen out with their work wife compared with just 5% who have never argued with their real-life spouse or partner.
The survey of 600 Irish workers was commissioned by Subway to celebrate Customer Appreciation Day, which will reward customers with a buy one, get one free deal on their Six-inch Subs at participating Subway stories in Ireland (see the list here) on Wednesday, 14 February.
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