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Reading El Reg while working from home? Here's a pleasant thought: Kaspersky says 1 in 10 of you are naked right now

Those daily Zoom calls just got worse

One in ten employees forced to work from home like to do so in the buff while some 8 per cent say they are showering less during lockdown – meaning those sweaty office chairs are positively teeming with microbial life.

Kaspersky's research of more than 8,000 bods from 18 countries including the UK, US, China, and Luxembourg quizzed folk on the guilty pleasures that made the months spent indoors this year more bearable.

Most of the responses may be familiar to Reg readers: almost half (48 per cent) said they had worked in comfy clothes all day, presumably pyjamas or general lounge wear. And a little more than a third (36 per cent) boasted of weekday lie-ins where they set the alarm clock to go off five minutes before their start time.

A tad more than a quarter (27 per cent) found working in the garden or on the balcony helped during lockdown – though in the northern hemisphere this is no longer an option unless they wrap themselves in thermal gear.

Then came the disgusting admissions of slobbery and grabbing fun during work hours where possible. Some 23 per cent admitted to binge watching Netflix during working hours, 16 per cent ordered takeaway lunches, and 11 per cent said that toiling away in the buff was their thing.

Some 12 per cent of respondents in the UK said they like working with their kit off – 62 people, including 26 men and 36 women. Kaspersky didn't give a wider geographic breakdown.

Neither did Kaspersky tell us if there was an overlap between naked workers and those that ticked the separate box about having lower personal hygiene standards when locked up at home. The reason for the research, said the company, was apparently to highlight the importance of using reliable tech to protect individual freedoms, though that didn't scream out at us.

Those of a certain age may remember the Romeo cleaners, the German dudes that appeared in episodes of Eurotrash in the early '90s, who for a fee would dust and freshen up customers' premises while wearing nowt but skimpy briefs.

El Reg went hunting and discovered a similar service closer to home: Naturist Cleaners was set up in 2017 by Laura Smith, who claimed it was to tap into a "growing new interest in nude cleaning in British society".

Apparently, it is a welcome break from the stuffy office, one of the cleaners told Cambridgeshire Live in 2018.

The pandemic has brought challenges and opportunities, and allowed different people to express themselves in new ways. A bold new world awaits this correspondent. Let us know in the comments if you feel the same. ®

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