You Shouldn't Make Friends at Work

Hard disagree.

I spent a very significant amount of my waking time working. This is one of the best opportunities to make friends, and IMHO it's also nicer to work with friends than with non-friends.

Most of the friends I made as an adult came from a work related setting.

It's hard to spend 8h/day for most of your adult life in a given environment and pretend you're not a social creature at the same time.

Why stop there? Don't marry and avoid drama. Have friends with benefits and keep boundaries. Don't have friends/kids/... and avoid all related drama.

What a sad way to live. The majority of my close friendships revolve around working on or toward things together. It gives a rich context and purpose to them.

I agree that making friends at work has made zero difference to my job satisfaction.

Made a hell of a lot of difference on my life satisfaction, though.

Ignoring an environment where you spend a big chunk of you life for things like friends and relationships sounds like a bad idea. Saying that this automatically leads to drama at work is questionable. We have a huge decline in friendships.

Also, you don't know if somebody is a good friend beforehand. You mostly find out if shit hits the fan. The same also applies to family members. Plus, people change. Sometimes good friends stop being good friends and normal friends stand up for you unexpectedly.

Maybe a better advice would be to manage you expectations. Don't expect others to stand up and risk something for you unless they explicitly said they would.

I think it's a bit unethical to post narrow opinion pieces on 'psychologytoday' while masquerading as fact (strong words, but I would simply be happy with them posting 'opinion piece' at the top)

I disagree with the article, or at least think it is blinkered.

Some of my best friends were made through work.

Drama has nothing to do with workplace friends, for some of us.

I consider the article to be potentially damaging.

I would call this article to be an artefact from the before-times mindset, but I do understand that I am not in the same position as a lot of FTEs.

Down the line, I believe it is important to be sociable and a “nice guy” at work, but I also believe that making friends in the workplace is very dangerous.

It’s a work place, you never know what can happen, you could get fired, or hesitate to jump on a good opportunity outside of the company because you are emotionally attached to “friends”.

Many people will say that they made friends are work.

However, the workplace is a competitive environment and those "friendships" get a reality check when it's time to chase that promotion/raise/new position or when things go South.

I'm friendly with people at work but I tend to keep boundaries on what I share. I wouldn't, for instance, discuss a romantic problem with them but I would tell them what I did for fun over the weekend. When I was younger I was more open with friends at work about all sorts of things but it came back to bite me in the ass. People at work like to gossip about everything and everyone so I avoid telling people anything I wouldn't want to be public knowledge.

Semi-agree - though with caveats. Some of my closest friends I’ve made through work but also having a larger attachment to the people at a company I’ve worked at makes it easier to justify staying in a bad position or being honest about the place being bad.

I worked at Lyft for a while and hesitated saying anything bad about it because I had lots of good friends who still worked there. I also stayed much longer than made sense and prioritized projects over my health cause of a sense of “if I let this slip everyone else will get punished”. Ultimately this was not true - the friends would have wanted me to make the best call for myself. But I can vouch, atleast personally, being nice and liked at work but avoiding making close friends on the immediate team I work on has been better all around.

You can make friends at work but to keep them make sure you interact with them outside of a work context.

If they are just someone you talk to at your desk or even go to lunch or drinks after work then if either of you changes job that context is removed.

Meet up with them on weekends or evenings if you want to keep them.

Terrible advice. You spend a very large portion of your life at work. Making friends that you can blow off steam and share memories with and building a network can be done simultaneously.

All of my long-lasting adult friends came outside of work. I always make friends at work, but when one of us switches jobs, we usually lose contact and don't really talk anymore.

I think its possible to like and be affable with people at work. You can respect them and chat with them.

But I can see the argument where you wouldn't want a "work relationship" to turn into a "friendship".

Friends might let things slip - and then there's resentment. That expectation of diligence might fade slightly in a real friendship.

I can see the argument to keep it professional in most cases. Having a work network and a friend network is an option.

Just make sure to maintain both...

How to say "don't unionize" without saying it

This article seems premised on the idea that if you aren't prepared to share all the intimate details of you life and dreams with someone then they aren't your friend. In my view this is a false premise which then leads them to some poor conclusions. There are certainly tensions between friendship and organisational structure but somehow I have made some great friends at work and I think you can too.

Yes, please: let's keep pushing this narrative that we are supposed to all be lonely, isolated, selfish, individual people. Building friendships and relationships is bad for us, don't you know.

Sigh.

Utter tripe. Good Lord, the West is really psyching itself out on these topics at a time of record-low birthrates and societal decay. No, Psychology Today: we need to be making more friends everywhere we can, even at work.

My father is now retired and still meets regularly with his former colleagues from various employers.

I've known some of them since I was little and practically grew up with a few of their children. I am still in close contact with some of them and they are definitely my childhood friends.

But are his former coworkers his friends? I don't know, but I know that I want the same for me and my kids.

In my eyes, making friends is a good way to help improve job security.

If I were to lose my job, I have friends across a number of companies who I could ask for a leg in. Frankly I think that’s the best way to make lateral movement in general, you can get an honest (somewhat) unbiased feel for a job without having to work there first.

Reaction after skimming article: Somebody who has that simplistic a worldview - either about the huge range of human relationships which are referred to by "friend", or about the nature of workplaces and coworkers - needs to have a long talk with a grown-up.

When this guy says don't get caught up in the drama trying to create a favorable narrative, he probably means something more like, create a favorable narrative with more influential people at the company, not with people you like hanging out with.

No. Let me experience some small portions of my life without networking and hustle, thanks.

This is reprehensible.

OP meant specifically corporate work.

At any other type of work, building up friendship is crucial for success.

Definitely do not fuck anybody you work with on a daily basis.

Never works out well. Got the T-shirt.

I think a reasonable point is being made in the article, but it’s pretty clumsy. Work relationships are not like your school drinking buddies. They come with more expectations, boundaries, and can be more complexly transactional. No reason to avoid them though, and you would really be hurting your career.

Article title should probably be, “Remember the difference between your professional friends and your personal friends.” Most people learn that one in a few months of working.

One of my very very best friends was my coworker. We went to Devops Days Berlin together which was a dream come true for two house music fans from Toronto. We went to Berghain! We’ve been hanging out for about a decade. He dropped everything with his wife and kid to bring me supplies when the building I lived in got a worst-case infestation of bedbugs during the pandemic. He always invites me to his DJ shows and we message almost every day.

Now that’s something to be grateful for.

As cgeier put it: hard disagree.

Love you buddy.