Friendship in the workplace – Making friends in the workplace is not a cakewalk.
In fact, there is a saying that colleagues can never be friends. Besides, there are trust issues too. You never know who is plotting behind your back, making mountains out of molehills, leading your words through the rumour mill, leading your image astray.
Mostly, office friendships thrive on idle gossips, sharing food, catching up for parties, covering each other’s shifts. These professional friendships have an enriching effect on our life and make the day at work less stressful.
However, in this bitter sweet symphony of professional life friendship, one needs to maintain the balance.
Friendship in the workplace –
1. Try and avoid the gossip:
This is the thumb rule of making friendships prosper at the workplace. You need to steer clear of the idle gossip that hovers in the office. If it starts with gossiping, then don’t expect it to stretch too far.
2. Try and be kind to all:
You may nurture a bias towards some colleagues but don’t let the other lot figure out your inclination. You need to be in talking terms with everyone, especially when you are given a group task, act normally so that others don’t get the idea that you dislike them deliberately.
3. Don’t be too partial:
There are always shortcomings of being friends with the office colleagues. You need to be straightforward but not rude. You should not let your personal problems influence your administrative decisions. We tend to take wrong decisions under bias which is not advisable.
4. Don’t spend too much time on trying to please others:
If you spend too much time trying to please them, you will end up in self-doubt. No one is a saint so judge everyone before proceeding. You may gel well with someone at work but only spending balanced amount of time is advisable.
5. Be a little secretive:
There should be a thin line between sharing and oversharing. This is a skill that you should master in order not make a laughing stock of yourself in the office. No matter how close to the person you are, you should be sharing limited amount of information regarding your lives and also make sure both are doing that in equal measure. Suppose, you are aware of some piece of information that might tarnish someone else’s image, you should be tight-lipped about it to the other colleagues whom you supposedly think your friend.
6. Weigh their movies:
You should judge people a lot to get your head around their motives. May be the benevolence they show is their way of exhausting some information out of you. Steer clear of these kinds of friendships.
7. Your boundaries should not be blurry:
If you are too friendly with a colleague, you will not be able to be upfront about her errors. You need to draw the line before digging too deep in the friendship otherwise there will be ample room for misunderstandings.
These are the ways to handle friendship in the workplace – So, these are the ways you can make friends in the office space and yet manage a good professional image.
