BATON ROUGE, LA—More than four out of five employees at LaPorte Technical Infrastructures prefer working after hours to braving an elevator ride with Richard, an internal company survey revealed Tuesday. "An overwhelming majority would opt to stay an extra half hour—even at the end of a long Friday—than share the same personal space with Richard for the 20 seconds it takes to get down to the lobby," HR manager Andrea Tibbets said. "When in the elevator with Richard, 45 percent of those polled said they avoid him by patting their pockets as if realizing they'd forgotten their keys, 29 percent pretend something is wrong with their phone, and 2 percent think maybe Richard's actually not that bad." Company officials said they were planning to promote Richard in recognition of his role in helping to increase office-wide productivity by some 13 percent.