I have a pretty tight schedule. Being in full time employment and doing Biashara on the side doesn’t leave you with a lot of time in your hands. I’ve also had the chance to work for different employers, actually four to be precise in the last six years of employment.
In all those companies I always make it a point to get along well with others. You stand to gain more when you’re friendly than those obnoxious employees who operate at their own level. Anyway, even after making such good friendship I only find that they are ‘very few workmates’ who can be truly counted as real friends.
Even when I make like fifteen good friends, at the end of the day you’ll normally find that you’ve kept in touch with only one or at best two friends after leaving a particular employer.
In college, making friends is as simple as sharing a particular course or unit, or staying in the hostel or having fun together in a particular joint. After graduation, however, there are no such opportunities. Because you might be too busy to go out and meet new people, the tendency is to target your coworkers.
But there are differences between close friends who will be there for you through life’s tough times and people you hang out with while you happen to be stuck in the same office or building. You can spare yourself disappointment later on by noting the differences between a work friend and a real friend.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
• If your friend left the company, would you still be in touch with him or her in a year?
• If you had a personal emergency, would you consider asking your friend for help?
• Do you hang out with your friend outside the office? (Weekday lunches, happy hours, and business trips don’t count.)
• Have you met your friend’s significant other? What about his or her friends outside the office?
• If your friend received the promotion you were banking on, would you be genuinely happy for him or her?
• If you ran into your friend in the streets, would you be able to talk to them for 10 minutes without mentioning work?
• Have you seen where your friend lives?
• Do you and your friend have anything in common besides your age and your job?
If you answered yes to several of these questions, you might have found yourself a real friend at work.
Is there anything like genuine friendship in the workplace?Many people’s careers have been destroyed by supposedly ‘good friends’ and others have had their lives changed for the better.
What’s your experience with workplace friendship? Did they steal your promotion, job, wife or even husband? comments below.
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