For Doug Roberts, one freaky Friday in New York changed the way he interacted with colleagues forever.
The New York Yankees were home, and Roberts was heading to (the late, great) Yankee Stadium for a night game with some friends. After disembarking the No. 4 subway train, the group passed through the turnstiles, climbed the ramps to their seats, and downed beer after beer while they watched another Yankee victory.
Outside the park, Roberts, who was then a sales executive for an education technology company, ran into a gaggle of colleagues on the street. Chitchat ensued, and the groups merged, wandering into a nearby bowling alley to throw some frames. While the group bowled, beer continued to flow. The night ended around 3 a.m.
The following Monday, back at the office, things got weird. For starters, Roberts' colleagues were far too chummy for a professional setting, calling him "Dougy" and slapping him on the back. Then, in the middle of a business meeting, one of the colleagues whipped out a story about Roberts' drunken behavior at the bowling alley.
"She was telling everyone, 'Wow, you guys should have seen Doug Friday night--he was screaming at people he didn't even know,'" recalls Roberts, who now works for a different education technology company, Synaptic Mash. "It was like she was ratting on me to all of these people who knew me as someone completely different."
Looking back, Roberts says he was victimized by colleagues who overestimated their place in his circle of friends. He certainly is not alone; as many of us spend more and more time at work--most studies say the average American works just over 40 hours each week--many of us are susceptible to experiencing the same problems.
Indeed, the evolution from work friend to close friend is a delicate transformation that usually raises more questions than it answers. How do we know when shared experiences equal true friendship? How do we know when it's appropriate to be chummy? Perhaps most important, how do we balance friendships with people with whom we are supposed to be professional?
"It's a slippery slope," says Jennifer Kahnweiler, president of aboutYOU, a consulting firm in Atlanta. "No matter how comfortable you might feel with someone at work, you always need to remember that in the workplace, work always comes first."
Benefits of work friends
On the surface, having friends at work can be worthwhile. Statistics from the 2006 American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate the average American works 8.2 hours a day--more time than we do anything other than sleeping (which averages 7.6 hours).
After all of this time at work, Jan Mitchell Johnson, president of GrantsFormation, a one-woman grant-writing and consulting firm in Houston, says forming personal relationships can be a welcome indulgence.
"Think about it--we all spend more time at work than we do with our significant others," says Johnson, who estimates she has made "dozens" of friendships with colleagues and clients she has met through work. "It's perfectly natural to want to make the very most of those relationships."
Johnson adds that friendships in the workplace also can provide a network of security when life gets in the way. Let's say you unexpectedly have to pick up the kids, you need to ditch out on a meeting to run an errand or you have to call in sick. Colleagues you consider to be friends are far more likely to fill in and help out than those who are just acquaintances.
Of course co-workers with genuine friendships also can enhance the workplace and the quality of work. Recent research from Gallup shows that close friendships at work boost employee satisfaction by almost 50 percent.
Los Angeles-based television producer Danielle Weinstock appreciates this kind of data. Weinstock has worked on shows such as "24," "Weeds," and "Crossing Jordan," and says that one of the best things about establishing personal relationships with people she works with is that she gets to know them on a deeper level and tailors her workplace persona accordingly.
"The more you know about someone at work, the better you can motivate them, understand them, and communicate with them," says Weinstock, who generally works on a freelance basis. "Identifying someone's strengths and weaknesses can be good for everyone, including your employer."
Careful what you wish for
Still, friendships don't always make work easier; in some cases, they actually can cause employees to overlook bad behavior.
Roughly 31 percent of U.S. workers have witnessed co-workers engaging in unethical conduct, according to a 2005 survey on workplace ethics by Hudson, a professional staffing firm in New York. Of 2,099 survey respondents who witnessed unethical or illegal acts, only half of them reported it to someone in authority.
Friendships at work can create other potential pitfalls, too. As with any relationship, over-sharing could leave you at risk for getting hurt. But because work is all about career development, positing too much trust in a colleague ultimately could put you at risk for more than just smarting feelings--it could impact your ability to accomplish goals.
Alan Allard, an executive coach in Lawrenceville, Ga., says that as an independent contractor, he's been in this situation a number of times.
"The moment a friend starts taking you for granted in a professional capacity, it becomes hard to say, 'Back off,'" says Allard. "When you work for a big company, it's easy to say, 'Work comes first.' But when it's just you, everything becomes a lot trickier."
As a freelance writer, I've experienced this quandary first-hand. I recently agreed to write an article for an editor friend. To put it bluntly, he hated my work. Under normal circumstances, I would have accepted a kill fee for the thwarted effort and called it a day. But in this case, because the editor was such a buddy, I felt obligated to bend over backwards and rewrite the story six times.
Sure, I salvaged the story and saved our relationship. But the effort meant that, on an hourly basis, I made only 10 percent of my normal rate--definitely not the way to run a profitable business long-term.
Flaunting friendships at work also can alienate those on the outside looking in. Philip Shaw, creative director at Golden Lasso, a 15-person advertising firm in Seattle, learned this the hard way.
Earlier this decade, Shaw became so friendly with two or three other top executives at the firm that at least one of the firm's employees started referring to him and his buddies as the "Axis of Evil." The situation got so intense that Shaw eventually had to call a meeting to address the complaints head-on.
"These comments became detrimental to our overall culture," he remembers, looking back. "I didn't think we were the 'Axis of Evil,' but hearing those comments forced me to take a closer look at how my actions were being interpreted by others across the board, and that's never a bad thing."
Manage perceptions
So what are some good ways to manage friendships at work? Most experts suggest that the best approaches are to manage perceptions and be wary.
In cases like Shaw's, instances where you are in fact legitimately friendly with a colleague, get that friendship out into the open so none of your colleagues (or subordinates) can accuse you of favoritism. Kahnweiler, the consultant in Atlanta, says that in the workplace, even if you've known someone for years, everybody should have to play by the same rules.
"When you're in an office situation, you're not giving favors or excusing someone coming late to a meeting because the person is your friend and you know he has trouble getting places on time," she says. "You want people to see you as fair, because fairness leads to credibility and that's what all of us should strive for in the first place."
And in those cases where you're developing relationships with colleagues, remember there's a difference between close friends who will be there for you through life's tough times and people you hang out with while you happen to be stuck in the same building, at work.
To determine what kind of friendships we have with our colleagues, Alexandra Levit, author of How'd You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Careers and How to Get Them, offers these questions:
- If the person left the company, would you still be in touch with her in a year?
- If you had a personal emergency, would you consider asking this person for help?
- If you ran into this person in the grocery store, would you be able to talk to her for ten minutes without mentioning work?
- If the person received the promotion you were banking on, would you be genuinely happy for her?
"You can spare yourself disappointment later on by noting the differences between a work friend and a real friend," she says. "In the workplace, it's probably best to focus on work."
Matt Villano is a freelance writer and editor based in Healdsburg, Calif. He is thankful that the only creature with which he must interact on a daily basis is his cat.
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