Being Friends with Your Co-Workers

[Tangfastic]

It's stupid to rule out a co-worker as a friend just because they work with you. There are many advantages to having real friends at work - you've got someone to watch your back, put an idea to for an honest and informed opinion, another pair of eyes and ears to keep you better informed and someone to take a few minutes of pleasurable time with during the working day.

I've often socialised with co-workers, work talk on such occasions is usually minimal and of the sort that it wouldn't be prudent to have overheard in the work environment.

I can't imagine anything more miserable than spending half my waking hours surrounded by people I didn't like.

To the op, if the post was more permanent would you have considered moving closer to the office and joining in a bit more?

 

[APK]

Maybe. I'm kind of flattered that this apparently means so much to them, but I already see most of these people 40 hours a week. I don't see any friends of family even half as much as that. I guess I'm more of the mind that at a certain point, enough is enough and there's no pressing need to spend MORE time with them.

 

[Texasmade]

I'm really good friends with a lot of my coworkers. We go out, drink, celebrate birthdays, etc. But like MetroStyles said this tends to happen when you have a large start group like banking, consulting, or in my case public accounting. Even when people quit the firm, we still meetup for drinks.

 

[Joffrey]

I have become very good friends with some people I have worked with at my old job, and still remain in close contact with most of them. I'm not friends with my current immediate co-workers though I am with people in different departments.

 

[NewYorkIslander]

I'd say two of my co-workers are friends, two more are acquaintances, the rest aren't even acquaintances. Most of them are "friends" and I think its pathetic...many they are their only friends. Most teachers are losers.

 

[rexthedestroyer]

What about if you are in the military? is it okay to be friends with your coworkers then?

Metrostyles is exactly right about organizations that have large classes of new hires facilitating the creation of friendships in the workplace. I am in middle management in government, but when i first started i had to go to a 2 year probation with several new hires. 5 years later, i am in a different position, but i still consider many in my intro class to be good friends. That coupled with the fact that I moved to a new city for this job made it easier for me to become friends with my coworkers.

 

[dtmt]

Someone who is your peer today might be your manager or underling tomorrow. Or you might end up competing for the same promotion or transfer. It's difficult to build or maintain a friendship under such circumstances. In my experience I've become better friends with former coworkers after one of us has changed teams or companies.

 

[MasterOfReality]

I am not what I would call friends with any of my co-workers. We have a small group of about 30. If I have to work with you for 50-60 hours a week, I'm not going to spend my 2 days a week off with you as well.

We all get on in the office, but rarely hang around eachother outside of work with the exception of a few drinks after work. We have a strict policy of no work related chat outside working hours.

I have made friends through work and in all instances it has been after they left and went somewhere else.

 

[chunkmo]

In my industry, theres a habit of hiring all the alumni students from a particular college so pretty much all of the employees have known of each other before being employed here.

Everyone gets along pretty well but the people that hang out outside of work are generally the people who were friends at college before joining. Everyone else tends to do their own thing.

 

[Biscotti]

I'm friends with my bosses and co-workers; we actually all go out and get ****-faced together.

 

[Cool The Kid]

My job now is pretty chill. They have a lot of events that helps breed comraderie. But outside of that I don't really mess w/people here. I feel like the outsider of a big clique at times. Too liberal/Apple product/NYTimesy for my tastes.

 

[madstaxbro]

I'm a teacher, and I'm friends with the superintendent and a few others at the district but I've found it's hard to get along socially with other educators. dtmt's comment explains it best I think. Especially sucks when we get those pretty new interns, can't even make a move even if I wanted to.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

At previous jobs I've been good friends with a few co-workers, usually the smaller the company is the more closely nit it ends up being.

 

[Sherlock]

I'm casual friends with my coworkers but not really close. I work in the IT department of a mid-sized company and most of the guys I work with are recent immigrants from China or India and they tend to prefer to stick with their own from what I've seen. That's fine by me, it's hard to be friends with someone when you don't have much in common. But I wouldn't be opposed to being close friends with someone just because we work together.

To be honest some of you sound a bit snobbish.

 

[noel_esq.]

I'm in my own little office at a galvanizing plant, 98 percent of the people I communicate with are illegals who can't speak a lick of english but work their ass off. It really sucks not being able to have an intelligent conversation with someone.