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

Jeez.

[Leven Valera]

Damn, man, you mean socialize? As in, hang out? With the users? WTF?

Oh, other IT. Okay. Had me panicked for a second.

Re:Jeez.

[heylady]

I work with these people 40+ hours a week....to socialize with them and talk about what? :) WORK?

oh...my...god

[Anonymous Coward]

/. is fucking ann landers

Drinks after work ???

[teaserX]

Are you mad? IT guys don't drink after work. Espescialy *WITH* other IT guys. We drink *during* work.

Friendship in the office

[iBod]

About a year ago, I stopped working in an office and now work full time from my office at home.

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.

Re:Friendship in the office

[GTRacer]

Hmmm...maybe it's just me, but my general non-need for social interaction is one thing that led me to my career choice of I/T.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lovely wife of 7 years and 2 kids, and we have a few friends we hang out with. We go to movies, dinners out, theme parks, all kinds of places with people.

What I don't get is many people's apparent need for several close friendships. How on earth are you supposed to have time to work 10-hour days, spend quality time with the family and still have personal time greater than 15 minutes a night if you have a whole bunch of friends you feel compelled to socialize with?

I'd much rather be playing Ace Combat 4 or GTA3 than trying to hold up one end of a "status" fiendship any day!

GTRacer
- Likes people, more or less...

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*

geeks have superiority complexes...

[Mr. Quick]

... why would i want to hang out with people that aren't as smart as me?

Re:geeks have superiority complexes...

[Snowfox]

that should be "as smart as I"

Narcissist! This wasn't about you!!!

:)

Re:geeks have superiority complexes...

[Alomex]

... why would i want to hang out with people that aren't as smart as me?

This is a bad translation of what actually goes in a geek's head. Geeks like intellectual stimuli as they easily get bored.

Intellectual stimuli comes often from another smart person, but can also be obtained from somebody who is funny, witty, well travelled, or artistically inclined.

Most people do not interact this way, which means that most geeks find the average joe dull. Why would I want to hang out with a dull person?

Ask Slashdot?

[Accipiter]

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?

Re:Ask Slashdot?

[Masem]

Actually, there's more of a trick to this than you think.

Any other field outside of IT, where people rarely work more than 40-50hrs a week, it's quite common for workers to mingle after work in activities, have parties for other coworkers, etc. Since you only see these people for maybe upwards of an hour a day on average, they can be friends, or if you have problematic workers, you only have to deal with them for a short time, and thus they don't cause too much social trauma in the workplace. Additionally, 40 hr/wk, plus, say, an addition 10hr/wk with coworker activities, still leaves plenty of personal and family time, so it's balanced well.

In IT, where it's very easy to be required to work 60hr+/wk, you're seeing your coworkers a lot more than just an 1hr a day, and particularly if you have annoying coworkers, every extra minute can add up. Because you're now spending more time at work, you also tend to value your personal time more, and doing outside-work activities with coworkers probably loses out to getting away from them. And typically IT work can be a stressful job given the typical 'gap' between what the IT worker knows and what the customer knows, with the IT worker having to try to bridge that gap. All those factors make for the IT workplace to be potentially socially-stressed.

That's not to say that every IT workplace is like that, and I think that's the gist of this question; is there a commonality to social life of the IT workplace, or are their shining examples or dreadful situations that are worth hearing about?

Re:Ask Slashdot?

[odaiwai]

Do we need a Socializing HOWTO?

1. Introduction
2. Buying Rounds
2.1 Always Buy your round
2.2 Even if you don't like everyone.
3. Make Small Talk
3.1 The Weather
3.2 Not latest Kernel Versions (unless you're all geeks)
3.3 Sports are good
3.4 Geeky sports like Karate, Judo, Fencing are ok, but don't go overboard
3.5 Chess is right out
4. More drinking
4.1 Drink less than Alcoholics
4.2 Seriously, don't try and keep up
4.3 Don't get sick on the Boss
4.4 Get Happy, not stupid.
4.5 If you buy rounds when everyone else is drunk, you're not obliged to drink alcohol.
(otherwise known as 'chuffing heck, he didn't even look drunk after 15 pints of lager!'
4.6 Do Not Call the Boss a Wanker even after 15 pints of Lager.
4.7 Be able to Discretely Go Home early if required. (Wives are good for this)
5. When you get home
5.1 Drink Plenty of Water, eat something
6. Next Day
6.1 Don't be Hungover
6.2 Don't Show the Photos of the Boss and the inflatable Sheep.
6.3 Reserve them for Staff Appraisals
6.4 Eat fried egg and bacon sandwiches in front of the worst offenders from last night.
7. Summary
7.1 Don't get too Drunk
7.2 If you must get drunk, don't be obnoxious
7.3 Rember people who are obnoxious drunks
7.4 If they piss you off, portray them as alcoholics to the management.

Re:Ask Slashdot?

[bla]

I've made the experience that IT people generally lack social skills. Some more, some less, but I don't know a IT professional who's a 'party animal'. But maybe I just know the wrong people :-)

i know a lot of "IT geeks" that are complete party animals. most of my friends, actually :) their after-work activities consist mostly of either getting completely stoned and playing PS2 or going to raves/clubs/parties, etc.

one thing we don't do, however, is have BBQs where the guys sit around a throw back a few while the wives prepare salad and yell at the kids. largely this is because we're mostly too young to have kids, but it's also because all the girls in our group are equally IT geeks. we're a bunch of programmers, admins, and graphics people, and that's not delimited by sex at all. the attitudes are different in IT, i think, than in the professions listed in the original question. *shrug* YMMV. but that's been my experience.

Re:Ask Slashdot?

[mini me]

I think you need to make this more clear to the Slashdot crowd:

#include "beer.h"
#include "socialize.h"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int beer = 0;
int drink;
int alcoholic = 24;

while((beer = buy_rounds(beer)))
{
make_small_talk(ST_WEATHER | ST_SPORTS);
if(!everyone_else_drunk())
{
for(drink = 0; drink < alcoholic; drink++)
if(beer) consume(beer--, drink);
}
}
goto home;
home: drink_and_eat("water", "food");

return 0;
}

Re:Ask Slashdot?

[r_j_prahad]

You omitted a few critical variables...

double vision;
float vomit;
static struct urinal;

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.

Re:True.

[pubjames]

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.

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).

I hate to say it, but I'm a stereotype: no life

[Anonymous Coward]

(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.

A necessity!

[Markvs]

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.

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.

What about....

[SomeOtherGuy]

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.

Work is better with friends

[Christopher Bibbs]

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.

First thought rading your pust:

[wirefarm]

> 2. Buying Rounds

Hollowpoint...

My experiences--

[DarkEdgeX]

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.)

Re:Funny and insighfull

[Flounder]

Actually, the descriptions of the bonding, especially among firemen, is very real. My dad was a fireman for 26 years, and pretty much the only people he hung out with were his fellow firemen. Yes, weekend BBQs, softball games followed by pizza and beer, it all actually happens.

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.)

holy shit!

[Ender Ryan]

Holy shit man, I am SO glad I do not work with YOU!

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...