Office pal-itics

Last couple of weeks there have been a spate of departures from the organisation I work with.
Many of these decisions have surprised me, after nearly 15 - 18 years (and in one case over 25 years), they are now trying something new.

I have been with my organisation for 12 years now, and through the years, a firm kinda of comaradrie was built angsting over work assignments, gossiping about colleagues (sometimes only lah) et all. Though I must confess out of these few (ahem lucky ones) who have left, I was never "that" hot on friendship with most of the recent ones (but some earlier one, yes!).

Yet such depatures dont hit me until much after.

For me office pals are an important part of working life and I do marvel people who judiciously seperate their personal friends with office relationships (actually to an extent even I am one of them, but .....I do strive for the policy of "In Rome do what what the Romans did!). People come to office, keep to themseleves and concentrate 100 per cent on their jobs. And at the end of the day, they go back to after-work lives that no one has the foggiest idea about.

It's the working life experience boiled down to its cleansest, purest form - no frenzied shopping, on the clock lunch and no poking your nose into other people's affairs.

But much like a low-fat veggie diet, that is theoretically good for you, I don't really see much joy or laughter in such an existence (though am dead sure an organisation would love this scenario :) )

An average colleague comes in to work around 0900 hrs and does not leave office until around 7 pm (that's usually until when the bosses are sitting around waiting for their big boss to leave!) - realistically. That means as many as 10 - 12 hours are spent in office - or 75 per cent of waking hours in a day, five days a week.

In these critical waking hours crazy amout of stress is loaded onto us mortals - meetings, embarassement over a rival organisation getting that plum meeting, mutal dislike for the crazy old bosses - and with a pal in office, all this and more becomes that much more bearable.

Just sending an email or sms or msn chat - and chances are that things wont look quite so bad after that.

I was reading recently a research on 5 million people by some Gallup organisation shows that people who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged with that work.

But desptite this, bosses and us lowly workers see this differently.
As a manager and an employee, I feel office friendhships should never be discouraged. Though I do see some drawbacks.

The first has to do with the fact that friendships in office are quite different from those forged with classmates, where everyone is more or less equal. And second, while office pals may start out at the same level, but one could get promoted quicker and even become the other's boss.

And that's when these office friendship could turn sour and a failed realtion in the office is arguably much harder to manage than a friendship outside work. A friendship between a boss and colleague could open doors of jealousy and charges of favouritism as well.

I have also seen that office friendships burn brightly while they last and die off quickly when colleagues part ways. While one does feel a wee bit guilty of that promise one made of staying in touch, and when one does finally connect up, one lands up worrying about what to say! Colleagues leave, their circumstances change and one longer has a pulse on what's going on in their lives. And no matter how hard you try things are never the same again.

BUT, I am, atleast I think, one of those few lucky ones, (though I dont make friends that easily) who has some of the most lasting friendships made out of office.

To all you 'my' office friends, who have moved on, though I do envy you a wee bit (only for 'that' good opportunity that you got and I am still stuggling for!) , I cherish you - always.
And to the others, it was good while it lasted.

Until we meet again..............!