Where I’m Stuck: Is Mixing Work and Friends a Good Idea?

Something special is in the water today.

Shasta Nelson (pictured below) is answering the first of four “Where I’m Stuck” questions my blog readers submitted in the last month. And don’t get all smirky on me. This isn’t Dear So-and-So at Pre-teen Magazine. Shasta is a sharp one. And although some of us might not put a lot of thought into the act of friendship, allowing it to be something that “just happens”, I’m confident if you read Shasta long enough you’ll pick up some wisdom that strengthens your ability to extend and receive a better quality of friendship.

Shasta, if you don’t know her, is the C.E.O. of GirlFriendCircles –the only online community that matches women with new friends in 35 U.S. cities. She also wrote the book Friendships Don’t Just Happen and writes a column for the Huffington Post. (Did I mention she has an MDiv? Bonus points.)

So here’s the first question up for grabs and I want to tell me whether you agree with Shasta’s advice and if you’ve had any relevant experiences related to this? Or if you just want to add anything to what she has said.

Question 1:

A lot of people in the faith arena end up either working or volunteering with friends.  But when things get messy at work all the sudden, there is tension in the relationship and vice versa. What are some good tips for keeping work and friendship separate enough that trouble in one doesn’t impact the other? Or do you advise against friends working together? – From Michayla S. 

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Shasta Nelson:

I’m all for work relationships, even if they can be tricky.

 

Relationships in any context will have pros and cons but we don’t want to avoid what can be good just because it can also be awkward.  In fact, a work relationship comes with one of the biggest advantages in that it is one of the last places to make friends where we have one of the biggest friendship challenges taken care of for us—consistency.  That’s why it felt easy in school–we saw each other every day. In “real life” it’s actually much more difficult to see each other regularly enough to build up that familiarity and comfortableness.

 

The office is perfect, since you both have to spend so much time there. I’d definitely try to deepen that relationship, so much so that I’d encourage you to practice being friends outside of work, too, so that when one of you leaves the job you already have other structures in place for your friendship to continue.

 

People who have friends at work are way more inclined to report job satisfaction and companies recognize that that’s one of the best ways to retain employees. We will put up with a lot of stress and non-ideal job descriptions if we like the people we work with, so I’d say it’s worth being a pretty high priority at work. Plus, this is where you spend most of your time, so it make sense that at minimum you want to be surrounded by people you’re friendly with, even if they don’t all turn into consequential friendships.

 

I’d say two good principles are to, one, take it slow, and two, don’t let your friendship ever make others feel excluded in the office. The first one is super-important: don’t over-share with someone. Vulnerability—sharing more about yourself with less of a filter— is one of the actions that develops a friendship, but I encourage everyone to engage it step by step so that really you’re never taking a big risk, as much as you are many, many small ones. But that’s even more important at work, where you don’t want to share too much with someone before you’ve co-created a trusting relationship with each other.  And the second rule speaks more to making sure your friendship is adding to the office dynamics, not excluding others or making people feel wary, left out or suspicious. While at work, invite more people to join in your friendly relationship—invite others to sit with you at lunch—and try to do more of your eventual secret-sharing outside of the office.

[line] Photo credit:  http://www.mymodernmet.com/xn/detail/2100445:BlogPost:431087