Years ago I read a reddit thread saying you shouldn’t pursue friendships or relationships at your workplace. Then I again see all over the places over the internet that friendships don’t happen a lot after you become working adult and that they’re struggling make new friends. My question is If you don’t purse friendships, how would those happen?
Want to know about the thoughts of people over here.
Yes, absolutely. Why would you not?
You’re going to see them regularly anyway, so might as well be on friendly terms. Depending on where you work it’s possible or even likely that you’ll share some common interests too.
Yes, you or they will probably leave the company at some point, but that’s no reason not to make friends in the meantime. People come and go all the time; that’s life! If you’re lucky, you’ll make a friendship that survives even if you have to part ways at work. If not, just be happy with the friendship you had for as long as it lasted.
There’s a difference between being on friendly terms and being friends. I’m on friendly terms with everyone I work with, I’m not friends with any of them. Even those I’ve worked with for many years. I’m not at work to make friends or hang out or talk about personal issues. I’ll listen politely to whatever a coworker wants to say to me, but if its not about work I’ll try to redirect the conversation or end it as politely as possible. For me it’s about professionalism; if we’re not talking about a work related subject, we are off topic and wasting time. There’s also the potential for drama that comes with people at work knowing about your personal life and keeping a strict division between work and home avoids that risk.
Obviously this is entirely your choice to make, but this all sounds really rigid and restrictive. If you view someone telling you about their weekend as “wasting time,” I have to wonder if that mentality cuts into your personal life too. It’s totally reasonable to make friends at work. If the concern is that they’d bring your personal drama to work, then just don’t involve them in any personal drama and you’re gold.
My personal life is very different, I’ll generally talk about whatever with friends or even people I’ve just met. I think I am very unprofessional when I’m not working, it’s only when I’m working that I’m like this.
The point about drama isn’t necessarily about me sharing drama, there’s way more potential catalysts beyond that. Office politics can get crazy and all sorts of things can create weird drama. Being the boring person who is nice to everyone but only talks about work topics is an effective way to avoid that kind of bullshit.