It’s sometimes difficult to look past the stereotypes when it comes to the working world – the finicky accountant, the ‘love the sound of their own voice’ sales person, the preachy personal trainer – but if you pinned South Africa’s IT industry down as marijuana smokers you might not be too far from the truth.

Now the fact that IT professionals around the world have a liking for the green stuff isn’t exactly new – FBI director James Comey even said back in 2014 that they might have to relook their zero-tolerance policy on marijuana in order to attract the best in the business to fight cybercrime.

MyBroadband recently completed a lifestyle survey of 2020 respondents who work in IT, and their findings make for interesting reading:

…16.26% of South African IT professional smoked marijuana in the last year.

Designers – which includes website designers, graphic designers, and multimedia professionals – had the highest percentage of marijuana use at 29%.

They were followed by Internet, e-commerce, and website management professionals at 25%, and IT security specialists at 20%.

Here are their findings in full:

I suppose just as some athletes need to limber up before a big race, so do some IT folk need to light up before they get stuck in.

Feel free to forward this on to your company’s red-eyed IT department – just don’t be a dick about it, they can see all those sites you’ve been surfing during work hours.

[source:mybroadband]