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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?"
Damn, man, you mean socialize? As in, hang out? With the users? WTF?
Oh, other IT. Okay. Had me panicked for a second.
Woot w00t w007.
Maybe it's because we're a small company, but those sorts of things definitely happen here.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
/. is fucking ann landers
Are you mad? IT guys don't drink after work. Espescialy *WITH* other IT guys. We drink *during* work.
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
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...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
I get more done and have less distractions but I really do miss the social interaction, the gossip, the afterwork beers etc.
Why is there always this stereotypical assumption that because you cut code for a living you must be some kind of antisocial, introverted misfit? Coders have friends too y'know.
... why would i want to hang out with people that aren't as smart as me?
Okay, is social behavior THAT strange a task that we need an Ask Slashdot article about it? I'm still not clear on what the question is, but it seems to boil down to this:
"Am I allowed to be friends with everyone at work?"
You know, most people you work with do enjoy having fun. And most people you work with usually have fun with their friends. Now, if you're a friend of theirs, chances are they'll want to have fun and invite you along. Why? Because you're their friend. That is how friendships work.
I didn't realize this was such a complicated subject. People who are compatible will gravitate toward one another, regardless of the venue.
What do you need, written instructions?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
which is why I have to hang out on /. all the time.
:(
Seriously tho, I work a midnight to 8am shift, if I had friends, I'd never see 'em anyways. God Bless 24/7 support
No, I'm not a social introvert. My cow-orkers were picked by HR. Yeah, right, there's a good filter for close, personal friendship. I pick my friends, and the overlap has thus far been slim, although anything might happen.
1Alpha7
Live to be Moderated
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).
I hang out with people every once in a while from previous workplaces, but not my current one. I keep believing this is just a bad dream - I haven't even memorized people's first names. Just the first initial and last name. I get weird looks when i say "Good morning, bsmith!". I dunno why. But in a company that considers Christmas & Thanksgiving "Just another workday" unless you can prove meaningful or religous backing for the days, I won't dedicate too many engrams..
The comradare I had with my co-workers at the deceased dot-com i worked for is still strong, and one of the best friendships of my life came from it, but here.. Well, for one, im the only one under the age of 30 and my biggest chum is a manager. Interpret that as you may.
BBQ on a sunny weekend, chugging a few cold ones
then someone gets in their car and has a massive accident, sues company for supplying the alcohol. End of party. A lot of night clubs are starting to take keys away from impaired patrons because, more and more, the responsibility is being shifted to the clubs. Just think "Tobacco company is responsible for someone's smoking and lung disease" for legal precedent.
Then there's the possibility of sexual harassment suit after a few cold ones, not to mention making 'politically incorrect' jokes... It all puts a big chill on the so-called 'fun'.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
We get together to go to Yankee games, hang out after work at the bar, etc.....
:-)
My entire team (~10 sysadmins) get along great.
I even keep in touch with the folks from my previous job -- we all get together once a month or so to hang out.
Ya gotta keep yourself sane.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
:-)
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.
At my LAST job, we had plenty of 'Employee appreciation' type BBQ's that were really strained. It was rather obvious that the sentiment wasn't genuine and it came from some Management cookbook to increase productivity. The staff saw through it easily. (But we still ate the donuts.)
At my current job, there's a much better morale, a camaraderie if you will (Kum-ba-ya) While we don't usually get together on the weekends, there are more than enough employeee sponsored Potlucks during the holidays to seriously impact my wasteline. We've had Beer's in the Bar after work, and folks pretty regularly bring in food in the morning. All this is pretty funny as the IT department is a vacuum of calm in an otherwise really f*cked up government entity.
(That and they're taking the troops to breakfast this morning. Yum!)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
It is more true of IT companies than others, mainly because a lot of IT workers are anti-social.
We are not fucking anti-social! Idiot.
I don't know about other people, but I am in a development program at a large company. Most people in the program were recruited from schools quite some distance away, and relocated here. Because of that, we pretty much know only each other (the fact that they put us all together in classes for two weeks helps), and we've become pretty good friends. I don't hang around w/my direct co-workers much, mostly because they're all double my age (I write COBOL...). I play golf, go to happy hours, hit the "nightspots", watch football, etc... with people in the program, though.
Now, the problem I need help with is meeting people *outside* of work...bars suck, gyms don't work...the best luck I've had is basketball at the local park, but it's gettin a little chilly for that in New England...anybody have any ideas for this?
Juiced? Or Not?
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
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).
The social interaction is there, even if it doesn't include girlfriends and BBQ. More often than not, it also includes some game like Quake.
Geeks just have a different common ground between each other than fire fighters or policemen, but the pecking order still is established somehow.
Everyone at work is essentially your comptition, when it comes time to get that raise, your so called friend will use everything against you he can to make sure he gets the raise and not you, and because YOU were stupid enough to allow this competitor into your life, you suffer the concequences when they ruin it.
Lets get a few facts straight, theres no such thing, as a "Friend" at work, these are called assosiates, you work with them, but you are careful what you say around them. Talk bad about the boss around the wrong guy and next thing you know you'll be fired or in your bosses office explaining yourself.
I know i cant be the only person here who knows that the first rule is never trust anyone at work.
The second rule is never try to make friends with people at work.
Third rule is not to date women from work. If you are a high up CEO or boss, and all the women are after you, dont fall for it, you know they just want a raise and want to move up.
Well enough with my rules, I'm sure everyone knows the rules, but some people are too blind to follow.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I allways enjoy these things the moment its organized (or simply not organized at all) by some other colleague or simply thought up by the group. And usually those occasions are much more fun too.
(Posting anonymously to preserve my anonymity.)
After work I take the bus to a Chinese restaurant and eat dinner, then I either go to a book store or straight home. At home I get on the computer, or a play on my keyboards (musical, not computer).
Even on the weekends I don't do much socially. I do some volunteer work at a nature center, but other than that I spend most of the weekends reading and writing.
So although I do have a life outside of computers - music, books, writing, nature - I really don't have a social life, and you can forget any thought of friendship with my co-workers.
I guess the stereotypes are true to an extent: I don't make friends easily and my interests are very esoteric by "normal" standards, so I spend a lot of time alone. I am looking forward to the Lord of the Rings movies, but that's pretty geeky in itself. (And I'm really bad here, anyway. As I said to someone on a message board "U-pedon i lam in Gelydh. Pedon Sindarin." *sigh* Yes, I actually speak Elvish.)
I guess my social ineptitude is partially a result of the whole "geek angst" experience: beat up by the "cool" kids in school; most school kids didn't want to be friends with me; chess club, RPG club, band. I've also got manic-depression thrown in to the mix, though, with a heavy emphasis on the depression. That didn't help any.
So do I have friends among my coworkers? No. They aren't like me. Even working in the computer industry.
Sure there are. I'm in a small group of Physicists/Computer Science postgrads and we regularly go out bowling, theatres, cinema etc. Most importantly we take it in turns to forrage for free food from the various seminars and lectures on site *grin*.
However the point about techies being fairly antisocial is true. As a group we're currently reaching the conclusion that our work takes up so much of our time and focus that we tend to get quite passionate and "scare" the non-techies who we meet. Oh well if they're not interested in distributed hetrogeneous storage solutions (with customizable replication) thats their loss seems to be the general consensus.
On the other hand I really don't want to see my lot attempting base/soft-ball (too many arguments about the physical mechanics of it) or soccer (lets not even go there).
I've worked with are not people I would choose as friends, despite our "common" interest in the job. The place I work at now, I don't even trust the guy next to me not to stab me in the back, let alone have a beer with him. The one guy I did respect quit. Lucky Bastard.
;)
I did do a 2 year stint as a chef at an upper-crust society club for awhile. That was loads of fun, lots of beer and Thurs/Fri. night fun. Anytime we had a banquet was an excuse to raid the liquor cabinets -- the Sous Chef did most of the raiding too
I may be wrong but I think this is a white colar job versus blue colar job thing, rather than an IT job versus everything else.
Sure, we do the christmas party, the "sponsor a kid" for the holidays stuff, the donuts on people's birthday, and on monday morning before our weekly status meetings we all talk about our weekends and stuff. But I would say this is all very superficial stuff. I see no deep bonding like you describe. Sure, a couple of people here that have similar interests (video games) do get together every once in a while to play, but that's about it. Maybe it's because of the way people come and go (get hired and laid off) or the way "political correctness" is such a huge influence that we hesitate interacting with our co-workers in any way that (heaven forbid!) could result in building a real friendship.
I think if you work in a type of job where your life depends on the other guy (firemen, policemen, etc) there is absolutely NO WAY BUT to forge really deep bonds with these co-workers. You know, the kind of job where "team work" is not just an abstraction that improves productivity, but where it means life and death.
I am sure there are exceptions to this. In fact, I know there are exceptions to this because my previous job was different. We were a very small team and yes, we did bond that way. But I always thought we were the exception rather than the rule.
We dont have weekends or friends, we have THE SIMS!
You are correct. Its absolutely STUPID to bring your personal life to your work, because eventually someone at work is going ot ruin your life to get a raise, or a promotion, or whatever, then where does that leave you?
Well now you'll be depressed because you thought person X who used you as a stepping stone was your friend.
Having friends are work is just dumb, dont you people learn anything from Steve jobs and bill gates?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I designed a quake map like that once- the rocket launcher was right by the BBQ so it was a very popular spot. No salad, though...
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Instead, I just sit in front of a monitor, pretending to work while I read Slashdot. Where's Beth when you need her?
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
As a contract employee, I seldom find myself hanging out with the regular employees. I keep in touch with and socialize with fellow contract people fairly regularly. When in the same city we'll do something about every week. I choose my friends among contracters, I have to work with the employees.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Before I said friends at work was dumb but i didnt go into detail why.
Take a look at Bill gates, Steve jobs etc, They were friends at work, but they were also competitors, backstabbing each other for money at every chance.
Someone who is a competitor can never be your friend, because they are your competition.
Look at the business genius bill gates, how did he get where he is today? Friendships at work!!!!
Its good to have assosiates at work, but these arent really friends, these are people who you call contacts, or if you are a backstabbing liar like bill gates you use these people to move up, but they arent your friend.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
My site only has 5 techs, another engineer, and a program manager. (All of which, barring one tech, came in after me).
When I arrived, I started a "Thursday night out" where we go to a different pub every week. About half the crew participates.
During this time steam gets blown off, information gets passed, and these members of the team are a lot closer than the others. Sure, we don't hang out on the weekends or anything, but the night out makes the job a lot more enjoyable.
That, and drinking with the boss has its advantages. I've learned all *kinds* of useful information vis-a-vis social engineering. Relatively easy after 3 or 4 pints of Guiness.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
aside from the fact that you cannot ever "fish off the company pier," great friendships can, in my opinion, be made at work. for instance, my boss and i are going on a week long ski trip in january with friends and family. occasionally, the guys here go out to play "pasture pool" (read: golf). however, one cannot have friends from only one locale. if all your friends are at work, you're in for trouble.
the moral of the story: make friends, and do it often.
and contacts, and networking.
Work is not a place to make friends, its a place to make money, the more allies you have on your team, the more money YOU make.
Its a competition, its like war
You dont make friends in War, you make allies, you have peace treaties, you dont make "friends"
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
1) You must know the people you work with for a while. A lot of IT people work with people for short chunks of time, then move on to the next project.
2) Well, chemistry. Lets face it, if you get along really well with your work people then you may well socialize outside work.
I was an intern this summer at a large company, and was working in a room with 6 other people. I think it was an unusual room in that we all got along really really well. We ate lunch together every day if possible, oftentimes people saw each other on the weekends, one day we went boating with our team lead, etc. This group, even though projects only last 4 months, had been together for about a year at that point, which was also unusual.
Police and firemen, etc. have this reputation for that kind of thing, but I think its really a product of your work environment. Socializing with their work mates and the community is mostly what they do, and the real firefighting and arresting people work is probably a very small portion of their time. IT in general isn't quite as good of an environment, but really its what you make of it.
Some thoughts that struck me:
In our company, which is in rough waters at the moment, the situation is pretty tense at the moment. The result of that is that the programmers are sticking together against management. Thus, people are doing something together out of free will. There the friendships are born.
Before, everything was a lot of fun. Everybody was happy _at_ work, so there was no _need_ to do something together.
Danger, or unfavorable situations, seem to encourage friendships. You have to trust your coworkers, and thus, it seems, are much more likely to get friends.
the pun is mightier than the sword
Hang out with my co-workers? Those nerds? I don't think so... ;)
I've had a variety of experiences at a few companies. My last company was filled with 20 year-olds, so there were lots of friends to be made. I made my closest friendships and that company and hang out with those old co-workers all the time. My current group is filled with a variety of ages and types. The only things we have in common are computers and alcohol. So sometimes after coding we go out drinking.
But I don't golf, don't have a wife or kids, and never want to visit anyone in New Jersey. (Yes, NJ really is the armpit of the US.) If we were all middle-aged bankers, I could see us going to all play golf one day or have a BBQ with the families. But with such a varied bunch of developers, I don't see that happening in my career anytime soon.
Developers: We can use your help.
The reason the computer is cool is because its not as stressful (emotional can easily turn into stressful) as life OFFLINE.
Because when online gets stressful, theres always the off button.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It is certainly less contradictory than saying Sales Geeks. Who are Notorious for such get togethers.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I get together with current and former IT co-workers once every other month and we play 8-20 hours of board games (SPI, AH, Placebo Press, Settlers). We gab, joke, rag on (Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, Linux, etc.), and talk shop. It is great fun. I even win a game occasionally. It just takes a little longer to recover now that I am in my 40s.
Actually, when I want to have a drink, have a dinner or have a party, I don't want to do it with friends from the IT work.
Some of them are really kewl dudez. But IT people often can speak about computers, and nothing else. That's not a good thing to refresh one's mind.
{{.sig}}
Do you go bowling, play poker, or help your colleagues pave the driveway of their new home?
I'm helping a coworker put a second story on his house in December. Does that count?
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel. You wouldn't understand...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
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)
The one time my (ex)company brought out beer for a staff meeting was when they announced we were all fired!
Now, picture Slashdot. Look around at your fellow posters. Do *you* get together on weekends? Do your spouses know any personal details of your fellow posters' spouses, beyond what may have slipped out during a long forgotten KDE/GNOME flamewar? Do you go trolling, play Counterstrike, or help your colleagues with the latest EFF petition? Do you even IM them to go out and get something to drink after work? Is it just the professions who share some element of physical and other danger from their incompetent, overzealous bosses where this stereotypical bonding occurs, or can it occur with everyone outside of Slashdot, too? What are your experiences with Slash relationships in the Dot?
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
people that don't drink. Hell, I am reading through all of these messages (and look at the "socializing" that happens in my office) and it's easy to see that someone who does not partake in mass quantities of alcohol usually will have nothing to participate in.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I was very fortunate to have some great people in my first development group. We'd go out for lunch, a bunch of us, once a week or so. We'd go out for beers after work. We threw parties, BBQ's, all the stuff you're talking about. Our wives knew each other (or husbands, for that matter). I thought all groups were like that, until I transfered within the company.
... get a new job! Jesus. Work is a place you go to for a few hours a day to pay your bills. If things are that ugly where you are, find a new place to trade your soul for money.
My new group is nothing like that. I have one good friend within the team; we get together and play games, drink, and bitch about work. The rest of these people are pretty stick-to-themselves. I can't imagine hanging out at some of these people's houses, or meeting their wives and kids.
Weirdly enough, I still get together with the people from the first team. Just this weekend my wife and I went over one of their homes to watch football and visit with him, his wife, and their kids.
I think it's just pure luck that decides these things. Some teams are just not meant to socialize together.
As for those that talk about how it's impossible to make friends with work people due to backstabbing, office politics, etc.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Let's see. I go riding (motorcycles) with my boss and a few of the other guys at his level. I stood up in another developers wedding. I've gone drinking with just about everyone I work with. Oh, and we're going to go see "The One" this Wednesday after work.
Now, what has this cost me? Uh, I only got a total of 133% in raises over the last 4 years. Damn, I'll bet the guy who was in my wedding screwed me over. Oh, and there was that time when they gave me choice of projects. I'll bet my drinking buddy was holding something back then. And all those nights out that got put on the expense report, that must have cost me about $0.01 dip in my stock value.
Having friends sucks! Except the time when a customer was bitching about me and everyone stood up for me because they knew me better. Maybe friends aren't so bad.
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 socialise with friends that used to be colleagues in ex-workplaces, and I'll count some of my current colleagues as friends and socialise with them - after we no longer work together, which likely won't be long in the current economic climate.
I have a laugh inside the workplace with my current colleages, but I don't see them outside work, nor do I go to work outings, nor even attend the regular and mandatory "Whoo yeah! Go us! We da best! We one big family!" pep talks (I choose to invest that time in boosting my morale by messengering my actual friends and family).
Work is the place where I get paid to provide services. It's not a substitute for friends and family, and I won't be drawn into that mindset, nor will I stay in work mode for one moment more than I'm paid for (which inevitably happens to a greater or lesser extent when you socialise with colleagues). If I enjoyed work, I'd do it for nothing, which is pretty much what I did as a games programmer. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, bought into the whole "We're doing something special! We're special people!" bunk, got screwed, moved on, stayed in touch with the actual good guys.
To paraphrase the great philospher Eric of Cartman: "I'm going over hyah, you guys can go over thyah. Hyah. Thyah."
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Now you'll know to never trust anyone at work.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
When our company was young and small, we did do a lot together outside work.
Back then, everyone knew everyone and we all worked closely together under difficult circumstances (we were among the first to build and run billing services software for the nacent cellular industry in the mid 80's). Our work was very stressful and the demands were high.
Nearly every Friday we would gather at the local establishment and wash our cares away with a variety of brews and distillations. We had a bowling league, we arranged picnics and softball/volleyball outings. We were all pretty young (many of us, this was our first job out of school) and we didn't have families and our work pretty much consumed us. We worked long hours in very chaotic conditions. We shared many common experiences and many of us were very close.
Then something happended. Not all at once, but over time our company got bigger and more stable. We had more and more employees and more work but and we became much more corporate. We moved into a different building further away from the city. People working for the company tended now to have families and such and the climate became much more professional and calm.
Now, employee gatherings outside of work are mostly team outings during the workday that happen 2-3 times a year. I don't know many of the faces I see everyday (as opposed to 10 years ago when I knew _everyone_). I have a family of my own now. Most people (like myself) put in our workday and go home to a busy life outside of work.
No, it is very different now.
> 2. Buying Rounds
Hollowpoint...
-- My Weblog.
Protect us from the mandated socializing! If you have a friend at work who wants to stop for a drink, fine. If your wife can stand his wife, have dinner and a movie. But if people in the company EXPECT you to join the happy hour ( for 3 hours! ) this is just extra strain on top of work. If they EXPECT you to get a gag gift for the Christmas party for someone you hardly know, this, too, is just extra strain. Enjoy your own friends and keep the company people at work!
Or the lack thereof. I work for a very old company (over 150 years!) - and there are a lot of people here who are "lifers". At 3.5 years working here, there are about 100 people (out of 150 total) who have been here 5 years or longer - one person has been here 35 years, about a half-dozen more over 30 years, and another 10 or so 25-30 years. So there's continuity, and that's one factor in having a strong social culture. The longer-term people are, the more the culture is preserved.
We also have a golf league in the spring/summer, and a bowling (candlepins) league in the winter - each league has around 30-40 participants (with some people doing both). That encourages interaction, too. Basically, a lot more people here are friends IRL than I see at most places. And people mix across the layers of hierarchy - Vice-presidents golf and bowl alongside mailroom workers, and it's pretty comfortable for most.
At my previous company (my successor reads here regularly, so he can speak to it if he wants), it was still social to a point, but it seemed to be more a core of us at the management level (many of the managers were members of the partners' families) that socialized together, and then the "rank and file" pretty much hung together by department. There wasn't quite as much mixing, and the one real attempt at a "group" thing when I was there (a softball league) fizzled out after a couple of years. Mind you, it was still a very good place to work, and I'm still friends with the people I befriended there - they were pretty much all good people, there just wasn't as much mixing.
It may have changed since then, but I doubt too much. Higher-pressure environments and younger companies (like that one) don't seem to have quite as much socializing across boundaries.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
1. HUGE company, one of the big ones. Social life sucked, until I met up with some of the younger people who worked there who hated it as much as I did. We hung out at lunch, and would go have drinks at least once a week. Great crowd. There were 3 of us who kind of made up the core group. After about 4 years, we all quit and went our separate ways. I later found out the social scene died there shortly after that.
2. Went to a startup company. Fantastic work environment, everyone loved their jobs (as much as you can). We didn't hang out hardly at all, but every once in a while we would. This was in a large city, and everyone commuted, so nobody really wanted to hang around after work. Startup died after being there 2 years.
3. New company is big, corporate, cubicles as far as the eye can see. There are forced social activities. (i.e. It isn't mandatory, but if you don't go, you have to work). Several people pretend to be social, because that is the corporate standard. At the end of the day I just want to forget this place exists.
I have friends outside of work, but at work I am kind of anti-social. I mean, it is a work environment, not a social environment. Don't try and make it social (mandatory fun), pretend we are all one big family, then force the corporate standard on me. The sheep seem to like it, but I don't.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You took a huge risk, work is not the place to take such risks, Your life is on the line literally.
So you met your wife at work, GOOD for you, most people meet a backstabbing liar who wants a raise or an ass kisser to the boss.
Lucky is winning the lottery, Lucky is becoming a millionare, Lucly is running a successful business without getting purchased by Microsoft, Lucky is a person who makes friends at work.
Work is all about competition, alot of the people you think are your friends really arent, and its not worth the risk. Money first, Friends second.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Ahem. Sorry. Been watching too much Invader Zim lately.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At my first IT-type job with a dot-com I had quite a lot of after-hours interactions with co-workers; this was mostly due to the fact that we were all roommates in the same house, but before we even moved in together we'd hang out, Quake III with eachother and whatnot (I'm not sure if playing Quake III counts, but it gave us a chance to interact). My wife knew stuff about the others and vice versa, that kind of thing, as well. But I suppose this is almost a given when people are shacked up together.
My second job, on the other hand, was quite different. I wasn't exactly outgoing, but it was my general impression that any relationship I had with my co-workers terminated at the end of the day-- don't get me wrong, they were great people and wonderful co-workers, but there wasn't much in the way of personal interaction or after work activities (in fact, in this latter category, I can recall NO after-work activities whatsoever). I mostly attribute this to my closed-off nature at the second job though, I think under different circumstances (eg: the prior dot-com not screwing me over) I'd have probably been friendlier.
To get to the juice of your question though; yes it does happen, it's perfectly normal and okay, and while it doesn't happen with ALL people (see my two examples above), it can. Some people may just not like that kind of thing (if you're questioning yourself and why it is you haven't had these kinds of 'bonding' relationships), I know that I enjoy my privacy after work, and the time it allots me to work on my hobbies (which are pretty much an addiction). If you have a similar all-consuming hobby, it's likely you don't interact with co-workers on this bonding-level you speak of, and it's likely normal given the situation. Now if you find yourself sitting around the house/apartment on the sofa watching more TV than is normal (or simply bored beyond words), I'd suggest speaking up or arranging something with your co-workers that might be fun for all of them. (EG: Bar/club, maybe just out to eat at a restaraunt, perhaps a movie, or just about any fun-to-do-in-groups activity.)
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
it's funny in that i do not actually spend that much time outside the office with people i directly work with, but the company i work for is quite large and has an extensive intramural sports program, and that has been the way i have met most of the people i would call 'friends' with whom i share an employer.
one of the main issues with not hanging out after work with coworkers is that most of the people i work with are easily 20 years or more older than me, and quite frankly we don't have many similar interests. they have kids, dogs, etc.
if it weren't for the intramural sports and meeting people my own age, it would be a very lonely place to work. probably enough to make me change my profession or find someplace else to work.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
At work, you dont know who is your friend, and who is not.
IF you treat everyone like a business partner, then theres no way for them to backstab you.
If you were steve jobs, you'd tell bill gates all your ideas over a beer one night, because hes your "friend"
Then you'd be at his mercy when he comes out with ideas based off of yours.
You can gamble and try to make friends at work, i mean if you knew people before they got the job or know the boss before he was a boss then its not so bad, but most people didnt know people before they got the job.
Essentially, they are all competition. Everyone doing anything they can to make sure they get more money.
Theres no friends in business, theres no friends in work, theres only assosiates, and business partners
to think that theres friends is like thinking IBM is our friend because they help promote linux.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You're drunk right now, aren't you?!
You dont choose the people you work with, YOU CHOOSE your friends. Its usually a bad idea to try to create emotional ties to something like work, work is competitive.
I dont know what kinda enviornment you are in, but at work, if you dont compete for the raise, you wont get a raise EVER, the guy who backstabs everyone or kisses the bosses ass usually gets the raise.
Perhaps you dont work for the money, BUT alot of people DO work for the money, especially people who arent making 100k a year like you must be making, money really matters when you have less of it, and people will do ANYTHING to get more of it, especially when they have children and wives.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Of course, when you risk your life on a daily basis with a group of people in similar circumstances, you can't help but bond with them. I don't think many IT people (myself included) consider our profession life threatening (unless you're AOL tech support, and that's just from suicides.)
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
I don't get together with any of the people I work with in IT at a smaller community college, but my wife's co-workers get together all the time at her boss's house for pool, card and to tap a keg or two.
Might have to do with the fact that 50% of my co-workers are tee-totalers and all of her co-workers were matriculated from the same frat house out of college.
care to give details on these lan parties?
What part of LAN party don't you understand?
(OK, stupid slash domain display screwed up the flow, but you get the idea....)
m00.
Obviously, you're not going to be friends with everyone you work with. But it certainly is possible. One definite advantage is a work environment that encourages having fun.
For example, a bunch of us from my first job still share a yahoo groups email list and get together every few months. Why? Because we had so much fun at work. (Our shared office was even nicknamed "Slack Central" and we all became known as "Slackers". In this case, slacker was a badge of honor, for a slacking attitude, not an indication of a slacking work ethic.) In fact we're getting together for a Xmas event with all the spouses and children included.
And another place I worked, with just a handful of people, we had beers and board games every friday after 4:30 or so ("Beer-thirty"). Family were welcome to stop by and join in. And a number of us still get together for lunch and occasional poker nights.
And the biggest reason to make friends at work is so that you can network with them the next time there's a recession and you get laid off.
It depends on how you view work.
When you go to work do you think "Lets go make some money today" Or do you think "Lets go have some fun"
Some people actually want to make money, Some people are serious, some people have bills to pay, families to feed, and backstabbing a co worker so their kid can have something he wants for xmas or so they can pay off a bill, it becomes a very logical move to make.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Flash forward to my current shop, where our manager tried in vain more than once to put together some kind of social outing - even a simple departmental lunch. He was met with responses like, "if I don't have to be at work, I've got better things to do at home," and "I just don't like to go out much." Now, these weren't 60+ hour a week, stressed-out folks; we had a regular work week, and they just preferred to stay isolated in their cubes rather than actually interact with other people. They were nice enough people, but yeesh, that's where stereotypes come from...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
People at work will backstab you every chance they get, report you to the boss, spy for the boss, even lie about you to move up.
Okay, this is getting ridiculous. One post with this attitude is enough. A dozen (from the same person) is going overboard.
If people really were like this everywhere, civilization would never have made it past hunter/gatherer.
There may be people like that. There may even be organizations that operate like that (and not suprisingly, fail amazingly quickly). But to label every workplace as a hellhole of murderous intent is to risk becoming a parody of yourself.
You forget that most people's goal is to be happy and that for most people, being a conniving backstabber doesn't make them happy.
Besides, taken only a little bit futher and we can assume that since everyone is out for themselves in work and out. Soon it's
"Trust nobody. Keep your laser handy!".
Then where are we?
If you ask me, general-purpose socializing after work, with the people with whom you work, is idiotic. Hmm.... you're post-college, with a job - isn't there anything more productive you could be doing? Exercising, learning something, relaxing - anything besides just hanging around somewhere with people you see more than your own family anyway?
How could you be so bored in life that wasting an evening or a weekend dicking around with your co-workers seems worthwhile? Sheesh.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
People who make 30k to 60k will do anything to make more money because theres people want to move up the ladder.
Some of these people will do anything, and i mean anything, to make more money. Including exploiting people, talking to people claiming to be their friend, listening to the person complain about the boss or something work related (most people complain about work all the time) and then report it to the boss to gain the bosses trust so the boss gives them a raise.
You must be making more money than the average worker, so moving up doesnt really matter much if you are at the top.
I dont know WHERE you work, but most work places and i'm talking most of them, they are filled with competitive people, who want more money than you, and because theres only one person who can get a certain position, or who can move up, everyone fights each other for the spot.
Connections are important, social skills are vital to moving up, social engineering is important, but friendship is not.
You dont need to have friends at work, some people want to have them, I wouldnt mind having them if i am not working in a competitive field, working at non profits, i didnt mind having friends at work, working for a corperation, things are diffrent.
When you have bills to pay, and you know everyone else has them too, friendship comes second, survival comes first.
Its easier to avoid having to choose between survival or your friendships by simply not having friends at work.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
However, when faced with coworkers who "need" you to help them find a problem, then take off for some social event while you spend the night correcting their code; or a boss that requires you to fix other people's buggy code because "you can and they can't"; or coworkers that resent you because your technical prowess shines a bright light on their incompetence; it is easy to understand why one would not want to work in such an environment:
You end up covering up after everyone else; getting shit on for it; and because you don't party with "the team" (spending your time fixing their bugs), get poor "non-team player" reviews.
Of course that's an environment where the game isn't to get a viable product out the door, but rather "let's see how much we can bleed the share-holders/customers". Sometimes it is by design (in a startup corrupt from the top). Sometimes it is due to management not having it's priorities straight.
But, whatever the reason, such shops are best avoided.
You could've hired me.
At my last job doing corporate IT support, I formed a number of strong friendships. All my users loved me, and I liked most of them quite a bit as well. The (non-IT) co-workers that were around my age, who were predominantly female, always went out to happy hours and such that I organized and we always had a collective blast at the company Christmas party as well.
My location's department was small-- It was just my then-boss, me, and during the summer of 2000, one intern and we supported about 100 people. I remain good friends with my boss from that job though it's been over a year since he left and almost a year since I left, and I was good friends with the [gorgeous female] intern before she worked in my department-- she had been working in Accounting while going to school for Computer Science. We remain close today.
At the job I took in January, I get along well with everyone but we don't really spend enough time together in the office to really get to know each other well. But that's life a a busy consultant.
~Philly
As an IT consultant, it's way too dangerous for me to get close to co-workers. On rare occaisions, I can socialize with other consultants. But usually, it's only after working with them for a few months. Wage slaves and their managers are nearly always completely in the dark about what it's like being a consultant. I'm not sure if they just don't do the math, or if they think the consulting firm gets 90% of the rate. But when people discover what I can usually make, they seem to go a little nuts. Maybe it's the programmer who thinks they work harder than I do (which is probably right), or the manager who thinks they've done their time and deserve it more than me. But if they get too close, they see too much. My comfortable $700 car is my only cover. Co-workers that work for the client, without fail, always ask me where I live for some reason. I'm always vague because I live in a neighborhood with million dollar homes (mine is nowhere near that) on a well known golf course in the chicago area. So I can't invite them over. And the wife and kids mean I don't really want an active after work night life. So I keep to myself at work. I don't have pictures on my desk. And I only consider a closer friendship with other independants who already know the well-known secret. My right-wing political opinions and religeous leanings are also frequently unpopular.
To advertise my personal life is to invite disaster.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Yup, but it is typical.
You could've hired me.
With that kind of attitude there must be a ton of backstabbing going on in your place of work. Of course you are all probably competing for raises and advancement, but if you can't trust each other then that is directly hindering your performance.
You have to be able to separate work from your social life, then you can compete for raises and still trust each other. Done correctly and maturely, you will acheive the best possible efficiency and you will also develop lasting friendships whether you like it or not.
Where I work, we're all pretty much friends, and it works out great. It's not always frictionless, but whenever there's a problem, that problem stays at work and is only dealt with at work. Our friendships may only help to quicken the resolution to the problem, not make it worse.
But whatever, enjoy living your life of backstabbing and distrust, it sounds like a load of fun...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This is your survival on the line here, your job is your survival, you make money here, and you cannot allow people to stab you in the back and make you lose your job, get less money, etc etc
Its a competition, despite what anyone may say, when it comes down to it, its competition. Thats how capitalism works, corperations compete, employees compete, and the competition creates better products
This doesnt mean people competiting should be friends with each other, i suppose if everyone whos competiting is a rich CEO, then yeah, but if you are all struggling to make ends meet, how can you be so friendly to your competition, the guy who wants to get YOUR spot, or the guy whos competiting with you for a spot?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I used to work at a small company, and there was a lot of socialization there.
But now I work at Intel, and it's exactly like you describe: people "compete together". There's absolutely no socialization here outside work hours at all. Don't come to work here.
Do your homework you idiot.
Bill gates is the richest man in the world not because of smart investments, not because he worked harder than everyone else, not because hes the smartest.
Hes the richest man in the world because he backstabbed every idiot who thinks just like you do "Bill gates is my friend, he wouldnt dare take my idea"
"Bill gates? I trust him, he wouldnt use that affair i had with my wife against me"
"What? Bill gates? Hes an honest man, he would never do something like that"
Imagine the shock on everyones faces when bill gates backstabbed all of them, every CEO whos ever tried to make friends with bill gates has ended up being backstabbed,
Why? Because bill gates KNOWS this is a competition.
Thats why Microsoft is so successful, Microsoft is a competitive company, an aggressive company.
If you were rich, chances are you stepped over alot of people and backstabbed quite a few to get where you are.
Some people get lucky and end up rich, but the people who are rich and who have friends dont usually stay rich.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
When I started in IT 5 years ago, about half of my group frequently socialized. I was the youngest of the group at 21, and I think the oldest in the "clique" was about 28. We'd go to lunch every day, have parties on the weekends, go barhopping a couple times a week, etc.
Then most of the people in the "clique" left. After that we really didn't do much, I went out for takeout chinese every day and made the rare appearance at department outings and other work functions.
Eventually I moved into our information security group. We're very close and tend to go out at least once a week if not more, have long happy hours for no apparent reason, go to each others weddings and suchlike. There are usually even invaders from other engineering and security functions within the company.
A lot of it also comes from the large number of 5-15 year workers here and the fact that everyone knows everyone because most of us have been here so long.
And yes, I have passed up large raises to stay where I'm at and work with the people I work with. Not massive raises, but big enough that it could have been a lot more fun money.
(Typically we consume massive amounts of alcohol too, so I guess we're like the ol' sysadmins in one respect...)
when I was working 17 hours a day who the Hell wanted to see these frigging people?
Now I have some I go to baseball games with had some over for the annual Halloween Party... but a true friend? Someone that I wouldn't sell out for 20K more a year, and who wouldn't do the same to me... probably not.
This
Being part of a military or paramilitary organization is very different than a "normal" job -- it's much more of a 24x7 lifestyle than it is a 9-5 job. I don't think danger is that much of a factor -- my job in the military was really no different, and no more dangerous, than what I do now. When I was in the USAF, my social circle was almost entirely co-workers; but now as a civilian there are only a very few co-workers who I see outside of work.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I used to in the late 80s. Alas, it led to romance, which has undesirable side-effects when you have to work with someone, especially when she's married! When I finally got out of that, I said Never Again. And in the 90s it was easier to keep some distance, since I didn't personally like my co-workers as much, and also wasn't as young/impressionable/tolerant. If I didn't have to go to work, I think I would make a good hermit. Someday... [Sloppy slips into a wistful daydream]
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
At least at Red Hat, people do meet in the weekends - on the net, to keep hacking on Linux. ;)
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Working in a place, where You being naive, trust everyone, allows YOU to be the one to get backstabbed.
Talk bad about the boss? You'll be the one in the office answering to the boss when the person you talked to reports you.
Complain about the job? You'll be the one not getting the raise because YOU complained about the job.
40k is not comfortable living in the USA, 40k is studio apartment living in the USA.
Where you live, perhaps people arent as competitive, I dont know,
To some point it does have to do with the work enviornment, some jobs are naturally not competitive, jobs like non profits, or jobs where no one is able to move up the ladder and you get paid by preformance.
The problem is most jobs arent like that, most jobs have managers, bosses, and levels, when you have levels, you are put in a situation where you must compete to move up to the next level.
This competition destroys all trust because now everyone is NOT equal, and if everyone is not equal, then you cannot trust anyone because everyone wants the raise, wants to move to the next level.
Your way of thinking is like in the playoffs a competiting teams star player deciding he wants to switch teams because his friends are on that team, and deciding he wants to play for all the teams his friends are on.
Its stupid because he'd be the one to make less money when HIS team losses and his friends all win.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I said not to make friends.
I'm nice to people, i talk to people. But i know what not to talk about, when to change the subject, or when not to answer.
I know not to take it too far, I know not to trust them.
I'm not bitter at all, I'm not going to be mean to anyone, I'm just not going to be a stupid fool who tries to trust competitors.
I can talk and socialize at work, but i know not to give anyone any ammo which can be used against me.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Indeed. I prefer meeting bots online.
If you are known as the guy who dresses up in the suit and tie, who only talks about work, and who isnt known to get personal with people. And some guy known to start rumors about people, starts a rumor about you.
Who are people going to believe? The guy known for starting rumors, or the quiet unknown guy who just does his job every day.
If a rumor is from a source which is not reliable, then people dont really pay much attention to them.
However if you are friends with the person starting the rumor, now the rumor is from a reliable source, people are likely to believe it.
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You always want to live day to day wondering how you'll pay bills? what about when you have a wife and kids
you always want to worry about how your kid will afford school and always worrying about your wife?
Think about it for a moment.
Either you be stressed out with bills, or you go for the money.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I think it has more to do with the size of the company, than it being IT -- although I recognize that companies usually have to be of a certain size before the "IT department" is more than the office assistant who "knows all about computers".
When I was working for a company of about 300, we did that sort of after-work socializing thing all the time. Oddly, looking back - even with the people one didn't like. It was more of a family -- you can't not go visit that weird Uncle, he's family. Once a company gets much bigger than that it isn't "family-like" anymore, and so one feels perfectly comfortable not hanging out with people they don't particularly like.
At my last job, there were about 5000 of us (not just IT)... there were maybe 5 people that I'd consider myself "friends" with -- you know, not "friends I wouldn't see outside of work", but people that I genuinely liked and would go out of my way to stop by and see, or go to lunch with, etc.
I don't consider myself particularly anti-social, but of course, I'd probably be the wrong person to ask.
You want cameraderie? Forget firemen -- what about accountants? Take your typical CPA firm. Not only do they refer to their collegues as their "brothers" (or "sisters"), but I've heard a typical accountant will even let his brother accountant borrow his pencil sharpener.
I did work for a big corperation
and I will admit, when i worked for non profits people werent competitive.
However everyone at a non profit is making the same amount of money (next to nothing) so theres no reason to compete!
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when your jobs on the line, your survival is on the line
You will do anything to survive.
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I dont have either, but i plan to someday.
A man who barely makes enough money to survive on his own, is NOT going to make enough money to take care of a wife and kids.
When you have to put your kids through school and college, and buy a house, Then money will start to matter.
What do you want? A happy wife and kids (the people who matter most in your life) Or are you selfish and just want to have fun at work while your kids suffer and wife struggles?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Theres simply no way to easily see the diffrence between someone whos a backstabber, and someone whos a true friend.
In fact, Theres absolutely no way to tell what someone is after short of reading their mind.
And you've never been backstabbed? You've been very lucky havent you.
In the real world people get backstabbed on a weekly basis.
And also, you must have never worked in a big company in all your life, because in a big company, theres usually only one or two spots with 20 people or so competiting to get it.
And PLEASE dont tell me you've never been in highschool and had people pretend to be your friends for whatever reason and backstab you.
Tell me your secret to "judging" people before you actually know them.
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Having worked previously in a police department, and after reading the comments on this list, I can say it probably IS the life-threatening danger, or the charactistically different nature of physical labor-intensive jobs. In terms of the life-threatening occupations, it's clear that the bonds of dependence are much, much tighter by necessity. Sure, there are coworkers you hate in every job, cops are no different. But the fact that in the end maybe your life will depend on this guy/gal means that otherwise common decency is boosted with a little self-interest. In that same vein, I've never seen more character assassination, sniping, and backstabbing as in my more recent IT job. Maybe if geeks carried guns they'd be nicer to each other? In terms of the physical jobs, the simple fact there is that you don't necessarily use your brain for much while doing the work. Your mind, and thoughts, are your own. After a hard day of back breaking labor laying sod, I'm happy to suck down a beer or eight with buddies sitting watching football. After a hard day of debugging thousands of lines of badly-commented code, I just want to stick my head in a bucket of ice and be left alone. Probably the nature of the beast.
-Styopa
So who's compensating for the 190+ in your avarage of 140?
How can you compete yet trust.
Ok so if you were Steve jobs, how can you "trust" bill gates.
Do you know how stupid you sound? You are saying Steve jobs was the wiser man and not bill gates!
Bill gates is the richest man in the world, NOT steve jobs. If your theory or way of thinking were correct, Then Steve jobs would be the richest man in the world not bill gates.
Also, why do you put the blame on me for being not being trust worthy?
Look around, the richest people in the world happen to be the most manipulative, and the people who run this country happen to be good liars.
Whats that tell you???
IN order to get to the top, either you compete, or you stay at the bottom.
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I have worked at one of Belgiums biggest ISPs. They frequently organise all sorts of events.
...
Some things I remember out of my head:
- every monday Company Breakfast
- every friday "Happy Hour" after work
Every floor has got his own kitchen, with names like "Bunny Heaven" or "The 7th Heaven" (the 7nd floor).
There are two company mailinglists, one for announcements like birthdays, out-of-offices and the likes, and one for jokes. Also, each department has got his mailinglist for department-wide communication. This helps to get to know other people from other floors, which is not so obvious when you're helldesking all day long.
Then there are company parties... And when I say party I don't mean "everybody takes off his tie and chats in his suit", but "the party was so good we weren't allowed to hire that building ever again."
There is karting, paintball, city-by-night,
When I left there was an action "The sales people challenge the Support people to help sell DSL accounts. If the helldesk sells X accounts by X, there will be a party. If they sell XX accounts, there will be a huge party, if they sell XXX accounts, there will be a giant party..." You get the picture...
Anyway, it was a nice place to work, and you definitely got to know other people. But indeed you didn't know much actual personal details of one another, but I think that's mostly because of the type of job. (or the lack of private life of the other employees)
Well at least you understand my point.
The problem is, if your boss tells you something and you tell anyone at work, then they MIGHT tell your boss.
You take a risk and you could suffer for it.
So the key is, dont take any risks at work, theres no reason to do so.
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i can already know all their deepest secrets. why waste time getting superficial information in person? ;-)
L'etat n'a pas besoin des savants.
- Robespierre, refusing clemency for Lavoisier
Some people say stupid things but to all people saying they will resign because they dont like the people they work with
how the hell did you get through school?!
School was way worse, highschool anyway.
Everyone backstabbed everyone DAILY.
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The responses to this topic has really surprised me, particularly the *number* of self proclaimed back-stabbing Psychos.
Their claim's are completely counter to my experience in the UK IT. At every position I've had in 12 years there has been a social crowd. A group that go boozing/clubbing/parting every week-end, I've also played sport & activities (Cricket/Soccer/Motor-Racing/Skiing/Driving/Kartin g/Sailing) and holiday with them, on one occasion even double dipping the same trollop. So yes my colleagues are my friends, some better friends than other and not my only friends, but certainly my friends.
Indeed to take a recent example, the night England beat Germany at soccer I was at a beer festival, with 5 Work Mates including my ex-boss, two direct colleagues and a subordinate. I got drunk, danced, before getting trashed and crashing (both metaphorically & actually) on one colleagues floor. Now there are people who are not invited or included in these activities, or even hinted at there true extent, but I guess that's the down side of being back-stabbing psycho.
I never assumed anything, in fact you all have a right to your opinion, but everyone knows certain things
i've sure i'm not the only one whos said dont trust people at work.
I'm sure some of your family members have said it, your friends.
You can trust everyone in the world if you want, I dont mind, I just know i wont be doing that.
I dont care if people trust me or not really, Thats not for me to worry about, I have to worry about who can be trusted with what.
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"I don't think many IT people (myself included) consider our profession life threatening"
You clearly have never had to deal with a Vice President or CEO who just lost a proposal an hour before their meeting.
who are anti social.
Society has to give them some name, Nerd, Geek, what now? Autistic, what next? give them pills to change them?
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But you see, that's not the choice I'm making. I have enough money to sustain the lifestyle I want. I also have a bit left over by the end of the month. And good enough future prospects which allows me not to worry too much about the future.
It's not go for the most money or worry about the bills, it's about choosing which bills you want, and going for enough money to meet those bills and seek the healthiest environment which meets that criterium.
Money is just one criterium, an important one, but not the only one, and for me, certainly not the most important one.
And because nobody knows him no one can spread rumors about him.
I dont care about spreading rumors, I'd prefer to be an unknown guy who just does his job.
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Someone you still socialize with long after neither of you work for the same place.
At work you have professional associates. All previous mentioned issues about job politics are very true. I've found nothing more uncomfortable than a company "social event" where all the politics of the workplace are in full force.
It's who you still hang out with when you have long since parted ways with the company that makes a friend.
If you make a friend at work, you will not really know it until neither of you work together.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
I'm half looking for a new job at the moment,
Only *half* looking ?
I would be long gone, never forget there is cronic shortage of IT staff, in every developed country around the world. So employers need you more than you need them, so do yourself (and every geek) a favour, and exercise some natural selection and make help make shitty
employers extinct.
I think this might have a lot to do with the age of people who work in IT. While it's certainly not closed to older people, as far as I've seen there are definitely a *lot* more younger people in IT, proportionally, than in most other areas.
Younger people are more likely to have existing social cliques from college/university/highschool. And I think these sorts of relationships will tend to endure for longer these days than they would have 20 years ago - communications technology is far more widespread and accessible, and people working in IT in particular will tend to make use of it. Cheap phonecalls and email (not to mention cheaper airflight!) mean that moving away from someone is far less likely to lead to drifting apart.
I feel that a lot of "workplace socialisation" is due to people spending significant proportions of their lives in a workplace environment, socially gravitating towards the people in it. But given that the "younger IT-worker demographic" is more likely to maintain preexisting relationships, and less likely to spend years and years working with the same people, I don't think it's all that surprising that it doesn't happen a lot in IT.
People in the IT industry have a great deal of searching resources at their disposal which they use on a regular basis. This reduces the amount of personal privacy you have. Your only recourse to preserve your last remnants of privacy, or at least, the illusion of privacy, is to distance yourself from personal relationships.
Do we need a socializing HOWTO?
There already is one.
:)
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The IT department that I work in seems to be very close. I'm one of 4 programmers, 1 phone tech, 3 grunts, and 2 network admins. We regulary get together after work for things like LAN parties, D&D, hiking, and other semi-social type things.
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 ?
Since I'm both an engineer and a cop I may have a bit of insight here:
... you spend that much time crammed in a car with someone you will get to know them. We also tend to make jokes or say things to break the stress - we don't want to offend people but its a common way of dealing with a bad situation. I can say those things to another officer without fear that it will get me in trouble because the victim or suspect hears my private thoughts.
1. Don't believe everything you see on TV.
I have a group of friends I hang out with from work or the radio club. I also have a number of friends from the PD that I hang out with. It is different with police officers - I can sit with my back to the door in a restaurant when I'm with other cops but it drives me nuts to do so when I'm not as one example. With the officers I work with we can be in a car for 10-16 hrs at a time
I find that its harder to get to know a non-law enforcement person now. There are a lot of reasons including safety - my phone number is unlisted, my land records are sealed, all my licenses etc use the police dept address. I deal with some not too nice people on a frequent basis and I don't want them showing up at my house.
Do we have weekly BBQ's? no, but we do have dinner a few nights a week, go hunting or fishing every few months and we don't talk about work all that much (well except for the realy good car wrecks*).
* A Ford explorer vs a Fire truck a few weeks ago - that was cool.... parts all over the place....I'll leave out the gory details....
At my last job, most people I worked with were at least twenty years older than I was, and had a truly "corporate" mindset, and that made it hard. There were a couple of people that I got to be good friends with, but that's out of a few hundred. It was just hard for me to really bond with someone whose main preoccupations were online gambling and keeping their teenage daughters out of trouble.
Now, at my current job, we're all mostly the same age, and we're all a lot more casual - and that makes all the difference. My fiancee's roommate married one co-worker, who was my roommate for a while. Another coworker and I built a high-power rocket together. And my boss and I go shooting together on a regular basis. Several of us go see new movies on a regular basis, and several coworkers come over to watch older movies on my home theater setup.
Whenever one of us has needed help on our house, be it drywalling or cutting down tremendous tree limbs, there's always been a couple of people from the office there to help out. Being the same age, and having common interests and attitudes makes all the difference in the world.
I do have to say, though, one of the more "elderly" employees (the director of sales) is the only reason that the owner hasn't been able to make us get rid of the two ferrets that we bought for the office....
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Finding ones who aren't burned out, and are divorced after years of working 60-100hr weeks is an entirely different story, however.
So, let's be completely un-pc, and lump the general IT community into a few social groups:
- Loner : You know the type. They work, they go home, whatever. Odds are, whomever asked the original question is one of 'em.
- Lush : The ones who come in hung over at least 3 times a week, and take a liquid lunch.
- Raver : Kind of rare, unless you're working with the creative folks, like graphic designers, etc.
- Family Person : As soon as they get home, you know they're being yelled at by their spouse.
- Gamer : You have to work a weekend, and you come in to find 5 bastards who won't stop shouting back and forth to each other while they cheat at whatever game.
Odds are, most of us fall somewhere between these categories...You get the quiet, social drinker, who will show up at the occasional lan party (Loner/Lush/Gamer), and for some reason, Lush/Family seems to go together way too often.People's personalities also seem to vary greatly by how much free time they have. Someone who lives 5 min from work, and is gone by 4pm every day doesn't tend to be quite so pissy as the sysadmin who normally fights 2hrs of traffic each morning, and hits the bars when they finally get the server fixed at 8pm.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I guess you dont have "REAL" Friends now do you.
If someone backstabs you, how the hell can you call them your friend?
You see, what you call a friend, I call an assosiate.
What I call a friend, is somenoe who does NOT backstab, someone whos honest, and who is a REAL friend.
Not someone whos a friend one moment and then backstabs you the next, if those are you friends, what are your enemies like?
And if someone backstabs you, how the hell can you trust them?
The best way to deal with the bad stuff, is to aviod the "bad" stuff.
You dont want to be in a situation where you lose your job over a so called "Friend" backstabbing you, what you do is you dont put yourself in such a situation rendering it an impossibility.
Your definition of real life = people who backstab each other but still consider each other friends and trust each other. Essentially people who never learn from their mistakes, who tolerate everyone even people who backstab them, etc etc
You live your life the way you like, I'm happier living life this way and would never want to live yours based on what you described.
Better to have a few true friends, than a ton of fake ones.
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>
> Trust nobody. Keep your laser handy!".
>
>Then where are we?
Anywhere in america, post-9/11?
I sure would like to be him, The richest man in the world, doesnt have to worry about anything, doesnt even have to work anymore, has a mansion, a wife, and kids, and will never have to worry about any of them because they all will be set for life.
You see, Family comes first, Family is more important than money, but money helps family.
If you understand this, You'll understand why people sell their souls for money.
I havent sold my soul for money, but i know that at work, alot of the higher up people, or the people you are working with have. This is why i say dont trust people you work with.
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Please explain that
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SOME people actually lie about it, telling people they trust everyone at work, letting everyone think they are real friends, and then when the time is right BOOM.
I'm honest, I never try to make friends at work, I dont lie to people, people know i'm going to work to make money, and hopefully with them but if it came down to it, then I'd have to make money at their expense.
Work is just like that, sometimes you are put in situations where you have to choose your job, or your friends, why have friends at work to make that choice more difficult and make you feel guilty about it if you make the right choice which is also the wrong choice
you lose either way.
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Generally, after you spend forty hours a week in close proximity with somebody, you don't want to spend your weekend with them too.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
But then again, I'm not properly socialized, and tend to interact mostly with my wife and kid.
Speaking of elitism (!), there's a vast quantity of ... er.... spooky folk in the IT industry. I hang out with a bunch of clever people that all seem to work in computer related fields - Sys Admin, Developers, Hell Deskers, Web designers, etc., tho a few work in other fields.
Hanging out after hours we all seem to be attracted to pretty much the same places. One of Australia's largest ISPs, Connect.com.au, doesn't seem to hire anyone else, and there's quite a few people who like the goff or metal `scene' (though that word sucks) at my own workplace.
If you want your IT workplace to bond like that, try to get "casual friday" changed to "nude friday".
Are you saying IT isn't a dangerous job? You've obviously never been attacked by an angry user, or sprained your finger on one of those old IBM I-could-kill-you-with-this keyboards.
Live dangerously...
It may give your first job if your lucky but since I was fired from my first IT job I am now screwed. Get solaris certification or something instead.
You still have the experience (they can't take that away). That should help you land another job.
P.S. If your ex-boss is making it hard for you to obtain work that might be in violation of the law.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I play in my office-mate's RPG, I went to my boss's New Year's party last year, I'm going to a cow-orker's wedding party in a couple of hours. There's a weekly trek to a greasy spoon that's been going on for a decade or two (maybe more?), to which most every new employee is invited. And yes, there have been cook-outs, both here and at my last job, with bonding and beer-drinking, and even a few SO's (kids other than babies are pretty rare, though).
I'm a pretty social guy, and I feel a bit uncomfortable in a "strictly business" operation- I know a few people that have been uncomfortable with my 'prying,' but they learn soon enough that it's harmless and I learn soon enough that it's not appreciated.
--Matthew
I saw this sort of behaviour in a tinpot little suburban volunteer civil defence organisation which had an ingrained culture of not trusting anyone with different skills to your own. In a training course I was told that "A leader can never admit that they are wrong, and using anothers idea just because it is better undermines disipline."
I've been stabbed in the back at work, but not very often. If you can't trust your co-workers it would be very difficult to get anything done that requires the work of several people with different skillsets - the guy who is an expert on subject "X" could be telling you anything and you wouldn't know.
On Survivor I'd be the first to go - I would suggest the unpopular but obvious, and would refuse to go with the majority decision if it was really stupid (camp in a river bed at the start of the wet season, eat wild pig when they are notorious for parasites that attack people too etc.(OK local knowledge helps, but some things are just stupid)) - so I would probably not survive long in a workplace like the one you've described.
I don't like wars and I don't treat work that way. In wars only a few people win and everyone else loses. And often even the winners end up wondering if they really won (coz everyone else hates them now).
Coz I believe there's a heaven, I figure making friends is infinitely better than making money.
Even if you don't, a bunch of good friends around could make even eternity seem a short time. Whereas if you only have lots of money to keep you company, it'll be hell wouldn't it?
Go ask any gamer: It's more fun to play with people esp friends than play by yourself no matter how many toys you have.
Why I say this is because you seem very focused on making money and winning "wars". And people usually get what they focus/concentrate on. If you know you will be happy with your goal then OK, just be kind enough not to squish too many of us on your way there.
Cheerio,
Link.
In this day and age of large software projects, engineers need to be able to communicate with each other well in order to work together well especially when telecommuting.
Getting to know the other members in a remote group sometimes takes more effort and perception (you miss a lot of body language), but through establishing real social interaction, even over the phone, you end up with better communication between team members and, ultimately, a better hunk of software.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Nah. The last job where coworkers used to regularly hang out after work was a long time ago (over ten years). And, actually, we weren't IT workers but rather electrical engineers that just happened to do a lot of interesting things with computers during the course of our work (avionics systems). Another difference was that it was a university engineering/research lab that was involved in outside contract work. I haven't experienced anything like that sort of comradery (sp?) since moving to the so-called ``real world''. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that most of my current coworkers live so far away from work that they're not exactly thrilled with the idea of going out to socialize with coworkers and then have an hour's worth of driving to get home. I floated the idea of a project completion barbeque not too long ago at work and it wasn't received well. That sort of activity was common back in my days working in academia. In fact, I'd say I have closer relationships with some of my coworkers from those days than I have with current coworkers. Part of it might have related to the close working conditions, the stress of meeting the deadlines for deliverables, 18-hour workdays, etc. Not the same as getting shot at or running into burning buildings, mind you (though sometimes it might have been more comfortable having the director take shots at us than sitting in some of his meetings :-) ).
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The father of a friend of mine was a relatively high up mucky-muck in a federal law-enforcement agency, and the protections were extended to him...
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Already or still? The former's a sign of an alcoholic, the latter a partier. +)
my sig's at the bottom of the page.