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?"

Comments

That's because it's TV

[Tony Shepps]

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.

Yes, but...

[under_score]

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.

Nope,

[Nos.]

There's a select group of people in my office that I go for coffee with, but almost no socializing happens outside of the office. Too many people have been stabbed in the back by co-workers, so there is the element of trust missing. Management (one of the worst backstabbers in our group) has tried some feeble efforts at team building, but cannot treat us with respect on any regular basis. The odd time that praise comes down from above, most of us are looking for an ulterior motive.

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).

Re:Computer programmers naturally solitary

[websensei]

I most vehemently disagree!

Given the right environment, hacker types are among the most truly social, uninhibited and communal personality types there are!

Anecdotally, I work in a Technology group comprised of about 60 people (feeds, db, app, backoffice, webdev, ops, tools, qa...) and we engineers *often* meet after work in decent numbers for beers, organize foozball tournaments at work, go out for lunch, go out for dinner, go on ski trips, go hiking, etc etc. I have found this group to be among the most varied, interesting, friendly and social group of people I've ever encountered. The ken-and-barbie types in biz dev and marketing -- the supposedly social crowd -- have nothing like this level of personal interaction, and groups outside Tech commonly complain that we have so much more fun than any other group here. I do not believe this to be an anomaly. Smart people with a range of interests are bound to find each others' company enjoyable.

If geeks have a reputation for antisocial behavior, it is IMHO due largely to their inability to relate to the shallow and selfish "in" groups in their school years. Once free to pursue their interests, they thrive. In the end it is the "popular" crowd from earlier years who end up lonely, ostracized, outcast for their inability to do or become something interesting. Being "cool" becomes pretty stale once you hit your mid-twenties and have shown no passion for mind, and for sharing and developing ideas....

I could continue but I owe my good friend in the app team some code before we go out to lunch.

Re:Friendship in the office

[GTRacer]

RE: Status Frienships - I couldn't think of a way to describe what I meant, but I didn't mean "status" in the hoity-toity society sense.

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*