Work friends

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’d say I’m collegial with my co-workers, but not friendly. I discuss my personal life (hobbies, family) as little as possible, and I am not comfortable hearing the details of my co-workers’ family lives. I avoid socializing with co-workers.

In my first job, I was generally very willing to talk about life outside the office. In my current job and my last job, I’ve made a concerted effort to keep my work life and my personal life as separate as possible.

I do this mainly because I don’t want my co-workers to think that they can decide whether something at work is more important than a particular commitment I’ve made outside of work. If they don’t know what those commitments are, they can’t make that decision for me. I will sometimes explain that a commitment is of a religious nature if I feel it’s appropriate (usually to reinforce that the time and date are absolutely non-negotiable and I will not be answering my phone); ditto appointments of a medical nature. I’ll explain the details of my religious observance to the extent that it affects my availability.

22

My company’s culture leans toward blurring the line between “friend” and “co-worker.” That has its pros and cons, but as we get bigger I see it being more of a bad thing than a good thing: people are unwilling to point out poor performance, etc., and are way too concerned with everyone’s feelings. (My motto: If you don’t do your job, screw your feelings!)

Personally, I’m not against the idea of becoming friends with a co-worker (in fact I met my best friend when we worked together 5 years ago), it just doesn’t happen very often. Partly because I’m picky about who I become friends with in general, but partly because I think that the line can be a tough one to cross: you never really know someone until you spend time with them outside of work, but if you find that you don’t really like them at that point, things can get complicated (hurt feelings, some people’s inability to separate business from personal, etc.).

That said, I’m pretty social at work: I go to welcome/birthday/farewell lunches, I have a few drinks at the occasional happy hour outside of the office, I go to all of the holiday parties and company picnics, there are a handful of people I’ll sit and chit-chat with during the day, etc. I like and get along with most of my co-workers, I just don’t think we’d want to hang out on weekends.

Also, it’s gotten harder to transfer work friendships to real life as I’ve gotten older: these days, if I meet someone I seem to click with, chances are that they have a husband/wife and probably kids. They have their lives and routines, I have my life and routines, and there just aren’t as many chances to wind up hanging out and getting to know each other. I value happy hour for that reason (it’s the outside-of-work setting that’s necessary to getting to know people, yet without any pressure), but it doesn’t happen with any regularity.

The only thing I actively refrain from is chipping in for personal events: baby showers, weddings, etc. I’ll pay for myself at a welcome/birthday/farewell lunch, and will even chip in to cover the honoree, but I won’t chip in for any kind of gift. I don’t feel obligated to give gifts to people who are not my personal friends, and a long time ago I stopped caring about what anyone thinks of me because of it. I’ve broken that “rule” once at this job, when my supervisor completed her EdD earlier this year: people don’t go around getting doctorate degrees like they go around getting married and having babies. :wink: (That wasn’t the real reason, but it’s true!)

What kind of job do you have where your co-workers could make that decision for you if they did know what your commitments were? Hell, if I want to take a day off to sit around the house in my PJs and watch old X-Files episodes, not even our CEO could tell me not to! :slight_smile:

23

My after work socializing with co-workers/staff consists of occasional get togethers for a drink or if we’re doing what we call a staff social. If there’s a serious illness/death in the family type thing, I’ll go visit at the hospital or go to the visitation at the funeral home and/or attend the funeral. I’ll even go so far as to find out if the family needs food (I’m southern, if you’re sick or somebody dies we bring food) and such.

Next month, we’re having a staff social at my house on a Friday afternoon. I have a pool, so once a year we have a staff social around the pool. It’s fun. People bring bathing suits to change into and swim or float around the pool on floats. We have good food, good drinks and a good time. However, nobody from work comes to my house on a regular basis to hang out around the pool.

I’ve got co-workers/staff whom I like but we work together. I’ve got friends who I want to socialize with on a regular basis. There is a difference.

24

[quite=misnomer]Hell, if I want to take a day off to sit around the house in my PJs and watch old X-Files episodes, not even our CEO could tell me not to!
[/quote]

You party animal you! :smiley:

25

The company that I work for employs a lot of young engineers and tends to move them to new locations/countries very frequently. We tend to spend 16-18 hours a day together at work so we have little time to go out and meet other people so we tend to socialise a lot as a group as we are basically the only people we know. But with people changing in and out on a regular basis it is a very fluid group. I have made some extremely strong friendships along the way and met a lot of interesting people.

26

It’s bad enough I have to see these yahoos 8+ hours a day. I’m sure as hell not going to fraternize with them on my own personal time.
[sub]The above was typed somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I spend time with three people I work with outside the office. One of them doesn’t even work in the same state.[/sub]

27

Tip of the iceberg, baby… :wink:

28

I’ve found that it’s often a case of not having similar interests and/or not being at the same point in life. I’m still within a few years of college/grad school, I’m not married, and I don’t have kids. Most of my coworkers are married and have families (and in some cases grandkids) so they just have different priorities than I do. I don’t want to go to kids’ birthday parties! So it’s really a matter of just not having enough in common to become friends outside of work, even though we’re all friendly at work.

29

I only socialize with one guy where I work. He’s my immediate supervisor, and closer to me in age than the rest of the staff. He has about thirty years’ experience in this field, as do I, so we have that in common, plus we get along well. And while, at the moment, the situation here has improved with regard to staff relations, the rest of the folks here are about half my age, and who wants to hang out with their kids’ friends? And what young folks want to hang out with somebody old enough to be their dad?

I was trying to find somebody to tell a joke from the “Ruin A Joke” thread, that Data from ST:NG might have told. Of six people I asked, four had never seen the program. Now there’s a generation gap for ya!

30

I used to socialize with the people I worked closely with outside of work, that was before we had kids. Now I socialize with the soccer and dance parents.

31

I am not really close freinds with my co-workers, in the sense that we hang out requently and stuff. But I do head out with a couple of them for golf on the weekend once in a whiel and we do get together for some poker once a month or so. In other words I am not adverse to doing something with many of the folks from work, but they aren’t my proverbial drinking buddies, either.

32

One of my coworkers from my previous departments became one of my best friends. I’m also now friends with her husband and her cousin. I’ve been to her wedding, we’ve gone to yard sales together. We usually spend out lunch breaks running errands together. Last year, we also took a trip to Mohegan Sun with her cousin and another of her friends. We stayed over night and had a great time.
Most of my former coworkers (from my last department, not my last job) and I are friendly. If someone has a party at home, most of us go. We celebrate weddings, pregnancy, new jobs, holidays, etc.
In my current department, I’m not very close to anyone but we (mostly) all get along great at work. I’ll be leaving this company on Thursday. I’ll miss seeing my best friend almost every day. But, at my new company, one of the sales people is my other best friend’s mom - so I’m starting out with a friend there.

33

I don’t make friends with people from work because work depresses me so much that I don’t want to carry it home with me. I mean, I have to tell people I know outside of work not to ask me about my work because it upsets me too much. A friend from work, nice as they may be, would be like a constant knife sticking in my side.

34

This is so true. At my last job, my co-workers knew a bit too much about me. The arm twisting to go out on social events was just unbelievable.