To all my single ladies and gents: Forget online dating, cruising the grocery store and awkward blind dates. If you really want a spouse, check out the cubicle next to you.
Thirty-eight percent of workers said they have dated someone in the workplace, and of those nearly a third married their colleague, according to a CareerBuilder survey.
The online survey questioned 7,780 full-time, non-government U.S. workers and was conducted by Harris Interactive between November 9 and December 5, 2011.
Of the 38% who said they’d dated a coworker at least once during their career, 17% were repeat offenders. They admitted to dating coworkers at least twice. (Does practice make perfect?)
The majority of workplace relationships developed between comparable job levels. But nearly one in five said they had dated the boss, which gives a new definition to the term kiss up. (We’re not judging.) The survey found women were more likely than men to date someone higher up in their organization: 35% of women compared to 23% of men.
The intra-office connections often don’t begin around the water cooler. Social settings outside of work spark most attractions. You may think happy hours with their margarita glow are where love begins flickering. You’d be right. But party-time ritual comes in second to running into people outside of work. Lunches and working late were the other popular catalysts for dating colleagues.
Please note that not all industries are created romantically equal. Journalism/communications didn’t make the top five. (Editor's note: #notsurprising)
The hospitality field is the number one place for workplace romance. It’s followed by financial services, transportation & utilities, information technology and health care. So, hotel staff, money mangers, doctors, nurses and tech gurus: Don’t quit your day job. You could lose out on love.
Let us know: Have you been there, done that or is dating in the workplace a bad idea?
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