Yesterday a friend from school asked me how I can make friends in school or office. She perceived her colleagues as competitors. To her business friendship is exchange of favors and is very different from friendship outside one’s professional space. In life, one chooses his/her friends based on the interests, vision, thoughts. The business acquaintances on the other hand are not chosen out of free will but need of the hour. According to her, to be successful in business networking one has to be selfish. Even when one meets outside the office for drink etc, everyone is updating a mental scorecard and evaluating the value and returns of each second invested. The intensity of the relationship is based on not how much one likes the other person’s company but by what the other person can do for you. No matter how close one gets he/she cannot forget who boss/customer is, who has the upper hand and who does not.
I am a strong believer of friendship and networking in professional life, but all I could reply was to list out a set of reasons why one should network. To that her reply was that the fact that I don’t like it does not mean I am not good at it. What are your views?
6 replies on “Can there be friends in office”
There will not be friends but friendly collegues in office.
yups and everybody is faking warmth and friendship
Its touch to say for me because I have found a good group at office, we have lots of fun together. We pull each others leg, when it come to help we do help each other but when its appraisal time and as usual some will get more and some less we have tension for say a month and then we all adjust.
There is another issue here, I don’t know how much correct I am (it’s just an opinion). Females tend to mind and think over small things (which can be ignored), probably it’s difficult for them to let things go easily, whereas for guys they let go many small things without giving much thought. This letting go attitude, sometimes, lead to better relationship at later stage.
thats exactly what i am saying… by nature humans like to be surrounded by humans but offices today create a culture which makes it hard for us to be friends in office for 12 months in a year.
about the gender… well i have seen lots of oversensitive guys too… in fact a very good friend of mine is one of them
I am really happy about oversensitive guys, I really started thinking I need to change the way I am, but well, now I will keep that on hold 😀
Regarding being friends 12 months in a year, all i can say is in normal friendship also there are times when u will not like something of someone and yet you will adjust coz you like them too much. May be its all about the how sensitive a person is.
I just hope I remain good friends with people who have become my friends in office 🙂
about year long friendship… well human interaction can never be summed up in one line.. its a sum total of 25-30 years of history with the same person or others.