Cupid Strikes the Cubicle

It looks like someone may have spiked the company water cooler with a little love potion this Valentineís Day. According to a survey conducted by online executive job search service TheLadders.com, over two-thirds of executives said theyíve harbored secret crushes on a co-worker.

The survey of 734 executives in the $100k job market found that a combination of long hours, close quarters and the slow hum of the photocopy machine may be the perfect recipe for romance. When asked: Have you ever harbored a secret crush on a co-worker; a full 68 percent of the executives surveyed said, ìyes.î Only 32 percent said, ìno.î

As for those workers whoíve taken the crush one step further, 42 percent of those responding to a related survey of 1,044 executives said that they have been involved in a full-fledged office romance.

How many of these PowerPoint and Excel spreadsheet-fueled romances involved infidelity? When asked in a third survey of 1,349 executives: Have you ever had an extramarital affair with a co-worker; 17 percent of respondents said, ìyes.î Thinking better of the repercussions of this type of romance, the 83 percent majority said they had not been adulterous with a co-worker.

ìAt its best, a healthy work environment is an intense, inspiring, challenging and gratifying place,î explained TheLadders.com founder and president, Marc Cenedella. ìWhile this combination can sometimes create a hothouse for emotional ties to the people we spend so much time with, office romances are not generally good for your career track. Executives who are serious about their careers need to think about business first; courting Alice in accounting isnít the best way to maintain that killer instinct.î

TheLadders.comís look at Office Valentines is based on a series of three independent surveys of registered $100k executives conducted on TheLadders.com Web site between January 11, 2005 and February 3, 2005. The margin of error for each survey is as follows:

Have you ever harbored a secret crush on a co-worker: 3.7 percent.

Have you ever been involved in an office romance: 3.0 percent.

Have you ever had an extramarital affair with a co-worker: 2.7 percent.

Now reaching over 245,000 readers and featuring over 4,000 new $100k job listings each week, TheLadders.com is the largest online job search service catering exclusively to the $100k market. Marc Cenedella founded TheLadders.com in July 2003 after a tenure as Senior Vice President, Finance & Operations, at HotJobs.com, ultimately shepherding that companyís sale to Yahoo, Inc. (NASD: YHOO) in 2002. In May 2004 he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by award-winning marketing newsletter, MarketingSherpa, which cited TheLadders.comís unique business model as a key to its sustained growth.