Writing for life

“Working it” column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 18/02/2008

Valentines day has been and gone, but the date (pardon the pun) prompted online recruitment portal RecruitIreland.com to conduct a survey of romantic antics in the Irish workplace. Some of the findings of the survey were:

• 44% of workers admit to having flirted with a fellow colleague by email or text
• 7% have unwittingly sent a flirty text or e-mail to wrong person
• half of all respondents think that a Valentines Day proposal is tacky
• 92% of females said there was no way they would ever pop the question, despite this being a leap-year
• 2 out of 3 workers believe that foreigners are more romantic than their Irish counterparts

Although we’re all busier than ever at work, it seems many of us still manage to find time for a bit of surreptitious flirting. Some admit to the occasional cheeky flirt by the photocopier but the most popular medium for flirting at work is electronic – with 62% of respondents choosing e-mail and 59% choosing texts. You have to feel a bit sorry for the 7% who have sent a flirty message to the wrong recipient by mistake. The problem with electronic messages is that once they’ve been sent, you can’t retract them – and they’re notoriously easy to forwarded to others or to post publicly for all to see. Suddenly that cheeky one-liner you were so proud of is in front of the wrong pair of eyes, and that could spell trouble. Perhaps in hindsight the photocopier option has its advantages.

In truth there are few surprises here. Flirting is alive and well in the Irish workplace… but then why wouldn’t it be? Harmless flirtatious exchanges are a normal part of male / female interaction the world over. We can’t help it – it’s hard-wired into our genes (or should that be jeans?). Naturally, as we spend more time at work than we do anywhere else, it’s where we tend to have more interaction with the opposite sex. The occasional flirtatious encounter is inevitable.

“More and more of our time is spent in the work environment and although we may be losing out on some work life balance one aspect that Irish workers seem determined not to leave behind is romance,” commented Emma Henry from RecruitIreland.com. “With the availability of email, text and instant messaging it allows colleagues to be more forward and daring than they would be face to face, so they may use it as a means of harmless flirting to break up the day.”

Breaking up the day and adding a bit of light hearted banter – flirtatious or otherwise – into the working mix is no harm. In fact it’s crucial for people under ever increasing pressure at work to have a way to let off a bit of steam with colleagues.

And while romantic liaisons in the workplace still lag behind pubs and nightclubs as the place to meet your future partners, some 15% of couples meet each other through work – so that innocent workplace flirting could literally end up changing your life.

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