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Grab your pencils, kids. It’s exam time.
The question: What do young professionals spend most of their time doing?
(A) Working
(B) Sleeping
(C) Leisure and sports activities
(D) Household activities
The answer, of course, is (A). In fact, it’s not even close. According to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, persons employed full-time spend 9.1 hours working on an average weekday, 7.6 hours sleeping, 3.0 hours doing leisure and sports activities and 0.9 hours doing household activities.
Given those statistics, it’s easy to see why office romances happen as often as they do. If a person is spending three times as much time working than playing, the chances of meeting someone with similar interests and backgrounds over an average 45-hour workweek seems as likely as a printer experiencing a paper jam.
In fact, career publisher Vault reports that 58 percent of employed Americans between the ages of 25 and 40 have admitted to having an office romance (and since some of these romances were likely done while one or both parties involved are married or in serious relationships, that number is likely higher). To take matters a step further, 23 percent admit to having sex in the office (so be wary of that large conference room table the next time you put your breakfast bagel down without a plate).
Office flirting is hard to resist, and may complicate your life in more ways than such relations could benefit it. If you happen to be in that crop of new meat entering the professional world, this environment can seem overwhelming, especially if you’re paired in large groups with your equally green peers. The entry-level rank-and-file often mix business and social pleasure as a way to adapt to their new lives - in other words, those long hours in the cubicle.
