Are people at work your friends…?

Mama told me watch your friends–they can be enemies within quick to
pretend like they fit in. Get in, they bring it all to an
end.

-Krayzie Bone on the song “Friends” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

Over the past two years or so I have worked for a company that I have kindly referred to as the “Big Red Machine”. Now, the company has had it’s share of ups and downs for me personally but I was sharing this thought in my head a few weeks back and one of my good friends also repeated what was in my head. Are people at work really, truly, sincerely, however you may put it, your friends? I remember when I first started working there, I was very shy and I didn’t want to leave a bad impression on anyone. I was trained by a guy who I refer to as Hall of Famer. I considered the guy to be my first, (or at least I thought), friend and he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy that cared about helping me succeed. However, after a while I saw the guy as someone who was really selfish and he didn’t care about making friends. I made an effort to get to know the guy but he seemed like a total tool who would backstab you the moment he could find the chance to do so. I don’t think he ever truly appreciated the effort that I made to at least talk to him because everyone there despised him to no end. I saw him trying to get to know me but he just complained a lot about work and the life he was living. He seemed intent on trying to put his own accomplishments over instead of his trying to help out others which is something that I see as being not only a helpful co-worker but as a friend as well. After a while, I figured that I was wrong about Famer and I should look for new friends at work. Now, Famer wasn’t the most popular guy yet his foe, if you will, was almost the exact opposite. Pitbull, as I would like to call him, was someone who helped me a lot when I first started, he taught me how to make things look good, how to impress the managers at work, and just some great tips overall. I found the guy to be a bit lazy, but I can understand since he had been there for almost 4 years when he got let go. I think the reason that I believed this person to be my friend was because we were both Mexican and he talked well enough to have me convinced he was all he said he was. From him, I learned a few things as to how and why we may not be truly friends with people at work. First, you only see these people at work, it isn’t always guaranteed that they will be there forever and when they are gone, it’s business as usual. For example, when multiple people have left due to career opportunities (cheap plug for the Clash!), financial reasons, finding out about yourself, or focusing on school people seem to only focus on the impact they had while they were there. I can remember when my friend, Rick, disappeared essentially from the company and I was really worried as to what happened. I was afraid he might have gotten sick, that he had an accident of some sort, and a part of me was in disgust that he just abandoned us. I remember people were just asking what happened to the guy and people were saying such things such as:
“What happened with Rick, did he just leave and bounce?”

“Job abandonment”

I was surprised because very few people took the chance to actually getting to know the guy. I can say that Rick, myself, JC, and Jason were a tight knit group for a while but I always felt that me and him had the ability to share more than just work. After talking to him some, I realized he had his own reasons for leaving the job and it made me realize that work isn’t the only thing in life. One of the main reasons I think friends may also not be your friends at work is because we all have our own lives and it’s very rare that we would actually take the chance to actually hang out with friends that we have at work. I also think it is strange that after someone leaves at the machine that they are soon forgotten about and people start getting sad when they are about to quit. I remember a few weeks ago, the cosmetics specialist, Taylor, was asking our security, Dillion, if he was leaving because she had overheard him talking about leaving but he was just making a joke. I personally believe that it is difficult to truly develop any real relationships when two or more people are working together, whatever it may be you are referring to. So, draw from this what you may but if you want to be friends with people at work, assume that they are ‘cool’ but after a while start getting to know and you’ll see how important it is to have friends that matter. Thank you for listening and good night!