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Friendships in the IT Workplace?
Greg Cantori asks: "We've seen stuff like this on TV and in movies. Policemen, Firemen, Astonauts, Army guys, etc, all gathered round a BBQ on a sunny weekend, chugging a few cold ones and maybe talking shop, wives and girlfriends preparing salads, kids running round the garden. Middle class bonding and fun, eh? Now, picture your IT workplace. Look around at your workmates. Do *you* get together on weekends? Do your spouses know any personal details of your workmates' spouses, beyond what may have slipped out during a long forgotten company Chistmas ball? Do you go bowling, play poker, or help your colleagues pave the driveway of their new home? Do you even have drinks with them after work? Is it just the professions who share some element of physical danger where this stereotypical bonding occurs, or can it occur with nerdy programmers? What are your experiences with friendships in the code-cutting office?"
We all telecommute, but those of us in Florida get together for a big Xmas party every year... a small group of us hangs out more frequently, but it's mostly because we work from our homes etc, and this gives us a chance to get to know each other on a more personal level.
With other jobs, we'd go out for drinks perhaps after completing (or landing) a large project, but never just for the heck of it.
I don't know if it's the "Personal danger" issue, maybe more that we aren't as social as most people...
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TV has a tough job to do, in using only 23 minutes or 46 minutes to develop a plot and resolve it with any sort of realism at all. Not to mention the many interruptions in which your drama must flow correctly. If they can take shortcuts with characters, they will.
In RL, it's important to have social situations secondary to the job. That way your social life and your job life can remain independent - and any job issues won't affect your friendships.
Although I am the sort to have few friends, and thus not an expert, I would say that depending on your job for your social life would be a bad idea in RL.
People who are heavily into IT are naturally solitary types.
Perhaps using a computer provides some of the fundamental interaction that we require, making social interaction less important for computer programmers. Stupid idea? People have emotional relationships with cats and dogs, and even with creatures which arguably don't have any self-awareness or emotions (pet spiders and fish, for instance). These animals fulfil some basic emotional need for interaction, and something to care about. Can the same thing not be said of a computer? They evoke emotional responses from humans after all. (Especially when the damn things crash when you haven't saved a copy of your work).
My work experience may not be as atypical as I once thought. I have two very good friends who I seem to end up working with over and over again. We are buddies from high school. We went to the same university and then went separate ways - for a short time. One of us, got a job at a startup and then convinced the founders to hire the other two of us. We made up the whole dev team and it was great. Lots of fun, loud music, really productive 30 hour stretches... Things turned sour financially, so we all managed to jump to Sun. From there, we all split up again, but only for a short time. We ended up together at another startup. Again we split up, and that is how things stand at the moment. Nevertheless, we have plans afoot to reunite. This is not to say that everything has been rosy. We have had our share of conflicts. Working together is one of the best ways to get to really know your friends. We have come very close to losing our mutual friendship due to work related problems. At one point, one of these friends of mine was my boss, and he wasn't very good at it (partly because he was my friend, but also just because it was his first time managing). I won't get into the details, but suffice it to say that there were some very very bad moments. Our spouses/girlfriends have relatively minimal contact which is partly because we are now geographically dispersed. I live in "northern" ontario, one friend lives in Toronto, and the other lives in San Fran. We see each other from time to time. Of course, I also make new friends when I start a new job. I have some very good friends from the days when I worked at Sun. And in my current job, which I started quite recently, I am developing some friendships that will almost certainly turn into the bucolic middle-class scene which is described in this article. But it depends on the work environment. Certainly this won't happen if you are in a telecommuting position :-) It also won't happen if you have a negative attitude towards your co-workers. You have to actively seek this out (if you want it that is). It doesn't just happen automatically. As well, office culture can play a fairly substantial role: if there are frequent social events, I think it is less likely that more spontaneous relationships will develop.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Its unfortunate since most of the people here are very skilled, but without trust between us, there is no way people will open up to each other, and thus, no socializing. It makes for a very ugly environment to work in. A co-op student we had about a year ago make this comment about one of the supervisors, "She's the only person I know that will smile to your fact while shoving a knife in your back." He came to this conclusion 4 weeks after working in our office.
Myself, and several others have actually been "hauled into the office" beacuse we tried to point out a flaw in a decision. In my case, I did it in private, explaining how a particular device did not meet our needs and would not provide the needed functionality. I was told to purchase it anyways. We got it, I explained again why it wouldn't work, and was pulled into the office by my supervisor and manager.
I'm not happy, nor are most of the people here. I'm half looking for a new job at the moment, while I take advantage of some training and pursue some more certification (yes, MCSE, but if it makes me marketable, who cares).
Or, there's the opposite point of view. Make friends with people all over the place you work. I've done this and it works great.
Where I used to work, my boss was my friend (we became friends before he was my boss) and the sysadmin was my friend. This meant a really pleasant working environment. A boss who is wiling to listen to reason and even the occasional excuse, but one who knows I'm not trying to screw him over. A sysadmin who is willing to listen when I say "I think the network is screwy". I hung out with both these guys after work and on weekends, and it never caused problems.
At the place I work now, there are 3 team leaders, and I'm good friends with the other two. We've been there the longest and get along really well. It's really convenient to be able to present a united front to management, to back eachother up, and to have someone to talk to when someone on your team is a real problem.
I think your first two rules (never trust anyone at work, never make friends with people at work) are ways to make your job unpleasant. Who's more likely to stab you in the back, a friend or an "associate"?
I think your third rule makes good sense, however. It's great (for you and the other person) while things work out, although it may bother, annoy, or sicken other people at work. But if ever you break up, you have to see your ex every day, perhaps flirting with other co-workers, etc.
Why? Because if person A is the boss of person B, person A is going to HAVE to make decisions that are in the company's best interests, even if they're not in B's best interests. The mere possibility of that kind of situation places massive stresses on any kind of workplace relationship. It only takes one accusation of favouritism to utterly wreck a close-knit team of employees.
Then, there's the fact that the workplace is invariably a pyramid. There are fewer positions of greater authority. Always. Especially in times of economic insecurity, you HAVE to make yourself valuable. That means a friend might get fired (always a good source of resentment), or a friend might get promoted ahead of you, even though you were "in line" for that promotion, and the job situation is just too tenuous to simply walk in, somewhere else.
The only way to work "well" is to check yourself in at the door, do the work assigned, and don't build close relationships at work.
This is not, IMHO, "ideal". The entire heirarchy concept is one that is the corporate form of feudalism. The reason we don't have feudalsim today, as the major political system, is that it works really badly. It's inflexible, and vulnerable to corruption, paranoia, "gang warfare", etc.
Corporations are people, same as countries, and therefore should function better under similar conditions. That means more openness, and (yes) in-work relationships & friendships. "Should" and "Do" are two very different words. Company structures have changed little in the past 10,000 years, and are really unlikely to change any time soon. (I was going to say that serfdom had been scrapped, but then I thought about the unpaid student labor that companies use for the grungy stuff that nobody else wants to touch.)
Until such time as you are employed by a non-heirarchical company that is psychologically sound, keep your friends and work as far apart as you possibly, humanly can. Then, and ONLY then, you can start being a person, rather than a puppet.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Your typical Tokyo after work get-together costs you ~$80/ea. Crappy dinner, beers and karaoke. Add $20 for cabs if it goes after midnight.
To counter this a bit, I did the following:
At my last job, I dreaded these things, so I instituted "Jim's Movie Night" where I would clear a big space in the document warehouse. set up a screen, speakers and one of those projectors usually reserved for PowerPoint. Everyone was told to bring their own food and beer and Just kick back and relax.
They were really a great success and management looked the other way.
When picking a movie became difficult, I hacked together a CGI voting program on the company intranet. I'd wget reviews of the movies from wherever and then let people vote on this week's movie.
It was a really nice thing - cheap and easy and a lot of fun. I'd recommend it to anyone who's got access to an old conference-room projector and a bit of space.
Start it out for close friends and let the thing grow as it will. You'll be surprised how many people will show.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
I mean the kind of friendship where you go out or meet because of a company function or a wedding or something and then nobody wants to end it, even if one or both sides is not enjoying themselves.
The few friends we have ARE close, and we really enjoy their company. We try to see them at least once a month, maybe twice. Then there's family, too. We usually see my parents 2 or 3 times a month and my wife's about the same.
As for the I/T job, I went down this path because of a Coleco ADAM. Being in a profession where my main responsibilities are computer-centric means not having to rely upon humans for my performance. I interact CONSTANTLY with the people here, and in this and all previous jobs save one, my superiors have always commented on my social skills.
I have no problem with people or social situations. I'm not a shy self-conscious geek. I'm no Adonis either, but I can handle myself around people. I just prefer not to.
GTRacer
- You can't legally switch off annoying *people*
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
*shrug* I'm sorry, but I'm not lying.
.... I'm not advocating opening up your soul to everyone you meet).
In High School, I wasn't ever popular enough to have anyone want to pretend to be my friend. I settled in with my little clique, and got through. Why would anybody backstab me -- what would they have to gain? Did I ever have some dickweed beat me up? Sure. Did I ever have some cute chick act like she cared who I was so she could get some help on her math homework? Sure. Did I understand exactly why that cute chick was being friendly? Of course. Did I help her anyway? Depends on how cute she was!
As for work -- I've worked only in big companies -- I'm currently working for a large computer storage company. As far as I know, I've never been backstabbed by a co-worker -- if they did it, they did it so well I didn't notice.
I've been promoted quickly based on my competence. I've made friends with some bosses, ignored others. I've never felt any of them used any metric to measure me other than their perception of my performance (very different than my performance -- I am in touch with reality here, and I understand that someone who works late every night may be seen as a better performer, even if they suck, then someone who does a great job 9-5 every day).
As for my great secret, you stumbled right onto it. You can't tell what someone's like until you do get to know them. So get to know them. Make some friends. Use those friends to help you evaluate other people. Some new guy comes into the group, and tries to get all buddy-buddy with the boss, you and your friends will immediately know the guy's a kiss-ass. The boss will know, too. And he won't get anywhere.
Maybe I'm just a young idealist who has yet to have his cherry broken on this subject. But I'm heading towards 30 awfully fast, and I've got a little plaque in my cube saying I've been here 5 years, so it's possible that there are big companies where your rules don't apply....
(FWIW, read another reply of mine, where I tell people not to be idiots -- to balance their work relationships with their friendships and temper them wisely
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Taco's and Beer at the local Mercado, starts at 12:00 ends about the time we go home, only the poos SOB with the duty pager is at work.
I find that the friends I made working mid shift as an operator are closer, and I still see more of them than the ones in the programing group I work for now. There is definetly somthing to the adversity bonding theory. The gang I worked with in server recovery is still closer than half my family, somthing about 10 hours sessions late at night brings people closer.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?