Friendship
Work friendships rest on a pillar you did not choose
Colleagues become close because they share a building, a workload and a common enemy. What survives when one of you resigns, and what predictably does not.
Everything here earned its place by changing an outcome. Nothing about friendships made at work is included to round the number up.
What matters most
- Work supplies proximity, shared problems and a common vocabulary at no cost to either person.
- The friendship is rarely tested outside the building until somebody leaves.
- Survival depends on whether you ever socialised without a work reason attached.
Why offices manufacture friends so efficiently
A workplace supplies everything friendship normally struggles for: daily proximity, a shared present tense, common problems and a legitimate reason to speak to each other. It also supplies the two things people bond over fastest, which are a difficult situation and somebody in authority who is handling it badly. Because the contact is free, neither person ever has to decide the friendship is worth an evening, so it grows without being chosen.
The intensity can be considerable, since colleagues often know more about your daily life than anyone outside your household does. All of it rests on a structure that neither of you built and neither of you controls.
What the shared context is doing
Half of what makes a work friendship easy is shorthand: you can start a sentence about a project and be understood without any preamble. Grievances are a common currency, and complaining about the same things is a genuine form of intimacy even when it is not a flattering one. The workplace also enforces a rhythm, so you meet whether or not either of you was in the mood for company that day.
Removing the shared context removes the subject matter, and many work friendships turn out to have had very little other subject matter available. This is not a criticism of the friendship; it describes what it was built out of.
What happens when somebody leaves
The first month usually involves warm messages, a leaving drink and a firm intention to keep meeting properly. By the third month the departed person has lost the context, so updates about the old place become explanations rather than conversation.
After a falling-out, the person still there has a new set of daily companions and no gap where the leaver used to be. Neither of them feels anything has changed emotionally, which is why the fading is so often experienced as a surprise. Most work friendships end here, and the ones that do not have almost always been socialised outside the building beforehand.
Predicting which ones survive
Ask whether you have ever met at a weekend, without colleagues present and without a work occasion as the excuse. Ask whether they know anything substantial about your life that has nothing to do with your job.
Between old friends, ask whether either of you has ever asked the other for something, since a favour outside work is a strong signal of independent standing. If the answer to all three is no, the friendship is a good working relationship, which is valuable and different. Knowing this in advance means you can convert the ones worth converting instead of assuming they will convert themselves.
The complications while you are still there
A close friendship with somebody you are also evaluated alongside carries real tension when promotions, redundancies or pay differences arrive. Becoming somebody's manager changes the friendship whether or not either of you wants it to, since you now hold information you cannot share. Confidences given inside a friendship can become awkward once one of you has a formal duty attached to them.
Across a decade, saying early and plainly what you will and will not discuss is easier than reconstructing the boundary after something has gone wrong. None of this makes work friendships a bad idea; it makes them a relationship with a second set of rules running underneath.
Converting one properly
Do the conversion while you are both still there, since an invitation from a current colleague is ordinary and one from a former colleague is an event. Meet somewhere that is not near the office and set a rule between yourselves that the workplace is not the main subject. Find one thing you have in common that predates or sits outside the job, because that is what the friendship will run on later.
Involve the rest of your life a little, since friendships that have met your other people are considerably more robust. After a departure, propose something specific within the first two months, because the window closes faster than anybody expects.
Everything above, in order of what to do first
- Why offices manufacture friends so efficiently. A workplace supplies everything friendship normally struggles for: daily proximity, a shared present tense, common problems and a legitimate reason to speak to each other.
- What the shared context is doing. Half of what makes a work friendship easy is shorthand: you can start a sentence about a project and be understood without any preamble.
- What happens when somebody leaves. The first month usually involves warm messages, a leaving drink and a firm intention to keep meeting properly.
- Predicting which ones survive. Ask whether you have ever met at a weekend, without colleagues present and without a work occasion as the excuse.
- The complications while you are still there. A close friendship with somebody you are also evaluated alongside carries real tension when promotions, redundancies or pay differences arrive.
- Converting one properly. Do the conversion while you are both still there, since an invitation from a current colleague is ordinary and one from a former colleague is an event.
The takeaway
If a colleague matters to you, meet them somewhere the job is not, while you both still work there.
Friendship is largely turning up, repeatedly, when there is no occasion for it.
Questions readers ask
Should I stay friends with someone who now manages me?
You can, but the friendship changes. Agree openly what you will no longer discuss, and accept that they will sometimes know things they cannot tell you.
We said we would stay in touch and we have not. Is it too late?
No. Send a specific invitation with no reference to the gap. Most former colleagues are pleased to hear from someone who knew that period of their life.
