How important are work friends

mrbrightside11

Hey all,

How important do you think work friends are? I’m lucky enough to be in a good job with a great bunch of people around me, including my manager. Great atmosphere and environment day to day that I don’t mind coming to work for. I have been made a team leader for just over a year now so the money is decent enough.

But I have been approached about moving jobs. The benefits and money are the same but I know the team and they are much older than me, no atmosphere at all. The area I am currently in is a bit niche and this team works in a much broader area so in terms of progression there could be more options or more money in the long run?

Any thoughts?

Just don’t want to leave on a whim and miss my team / the working environment. Also wouldn’t be a team leader anymore essentially starting from the bottom of a new team.

Appreciate your thoughts as I am a terrible over thinker / worrier!! :-)

LouD2016

At the end of the day most things really come down to money but it is important to enjoy where you work.

I worked in Dublin and had the best time with the people I worked with. We were all the same age and it really made the day bearable to be able to have a chat and a laugh.

The commute killed me though and I got a transfer down home. The office im in now is vastly different. Everyone is on average 20/30 years older than me. There's only 5 of us in the office and the conversations literally drain me every day.

I'm 10 mins from home and have a small child now so that's the only reason im staying here but I really do miss having a laugh with my old colleagues.

PointHop123

I am sort of the opinion that while it is good to have nice colleagues, that these are not real friendships except on a rare occasion

The work environment places us in a position where we spend more time with our colleagues than with our family, but once you (or a colleague leave) then the friendship usually withers.

I wouldn't stay in a job simply because I like my colleagues. Work needs to facilitate your outside life.

LouD2016

PointHop123 wrote: »

I am sort of the opinion that while it is good to have nice colleagues, that these are not real friendships except on a rare occasion

The work environment places us in a position where we spend more time with our colleagues than with our family, but once you (or a colleague leave) then the friendship usually withers.

I wouldn't stay in a job simply because I like my colleagues. Work needs to facilitate your outside life.

That's very true too. I hated having to leave my work mates but a better quality of life and no commute were way more important.

If a job is better suited for your career and there's more progression you will put up having to work with people that you may not have anything in common with.

OMM 0000

I would stay in the current job.

* Same money
* Better job title
* Lots of friends
* Not unhappy

I also think you need more time as a team leader, assuming you want to stay in management. 1 year's experience as a team leader isn't a lot.

Staying seems like the lowest risk option.

o1s1n

Either way, you're not going to stay in your current job forever, so you'll be moving away from those great colleagues at some point. I wouldn't be turning down a good opportunity for that reason.

Teyla Emmagan

Work friends are great but you move on or they move on and that's the end of it generally. Happiness is very important but you have to take the opportunity that prioritises your future. If you are trying to improve your career than it sounds like you should be moving on.

skallywag

I don't think that it is so important to have true friends at work in the sense that you do stuff outside of work a lot, etc., but having colleagues who you get on well with and in a fun-to-work-in environment is a huge plus in my opinion.

You encounter a lot of people who really do not like their working environment, or who are just counting down the time each day until it's quitting time, you just need to take a look at a large quantity of the posts on this forum to see proof of that. When you have a great working environment though you really can actually genuinely look forward to coming into work each day, which is something that people who are not lucky enough to be in the same position usually simply cannot understand.

Considering that there is also no immediate benefit in terms of compensation or responsibility, I think that I myself would be reluctant to move.

How about the day-to-day work itself, would that be more interesting to you?

_Brian

I've moved through many roles over the years and sometines work friends were important and other times not so much...


I worked cycle shifts for a long time and during tough nights etc good friends at wrk were essential to help each other through..


My current role Im out on the road 95% of my time on my own visiting clients. My immediate manager is great, I meet him maybe every two weeks, have another peer who I meet maybe every two months but can call if i need something, I rarely do.



The other 10-15 people in our office are a real mixed bag with some who I know by name to say hello to and some I dont even know theur names but thats from them shooting their mouths off in an open office and me consigning them to the "lets not bother" category..


I enjoy solitude my job affords.. no office politics, usually lunch on the road in forest parks etc, fresh air and walks.. Listen away to audiobooks on the road..

LouD2016

_Brian wrote: »

I've moved through many roles over the years and sometines work friends were important and other times not so much...


I worked cycle shifts for a long time and during tough nights etc good friends at wrk were essential to help each other through..


My current role Im out on the road 95% of my time on my own visiting clients. My immediate manager is great, I meet him maybe every two weeks, have another peer who I meet maybe every two months but can call if i need something, I rarely do.



The other 10-15 people in our office are a real mixed bag with some who I know by name to say hello to and some I dont even know theur names but thats from them shooting their mouths off in an open office and me consigning them to the "lets not bother" category..


I enjoy solitude my job affords.. no office politics, usually lunch on the road in forest parks etc, fresh air and walks.. Listen away to audiobooks on the road..

This sounds like heaven Being stuck in a small office all day with people you don't really click with can be torture.
There's only so much talk about people dying or sick I can take, couple up with the daily checking of RIP.ie. Im depressed by 9am

Strumms

In last job I only ever socialized with one dude outside. He was like me in the fact that we had the same interests... indie rock, gigs, football etc so if he needed a gig buddy or I did or extra tix floating about our friends circle then we’d all meet up, have a pint and a good night. He was English and had essentially moved here for work and to be near family here... a good lad although same can’t be said for too many of em.

RederthanRed

stay. your post, even if you didn't realise it, was shouting out stay. Read it back. you want to stay.

the rest is a fleeting fanciful thought, but you will stay

(No offence, just an honest opinion)

fritzelly

If you're happy and the job suits why even consider moving for the same money

topnotch

I think you would be nuts to move.

mrbrightside11

Thanks guys I really appreciate all the feedback. Guess I am also just worried about staying in a niche area for too long and not developing my skill set etc. as the other area would be much broader

Wanderer2010

I never understood people who say work is purely work and you must be almost like a robot from start to end of shift. Of course it helps to have a few pals to have a laugh with or share some of your life with. Now, that doesn't mean you need to depend 100% on these people for your social life and you should always be wary of what details you do share (keep any family issues, money, religion or politics out of it) but yes, having work buddies is a big factor in deciding if you like the environment or not.

arccosh

mrbrightside11 wrote: »

Thanks guys I really appreciate all the feedback. Guess I am also just worried about staying in a niche area for too long and not developing my skill set etc. as the other area would be much broader

can be looked at in two ways... could be your niche skill that clinches you a job next time round

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

(keep any family issues, money, religion or politics out of it)

I'm in an office in the UK where someone said "sure you'll be fine with Brexit, because Dublin's the capital of Northern Ireland"
It's tough sometimes :-D :-D

pepper61

mrbrightside11 wrote: »

Thanks guys I really appreciate all the feedback. Guess I am also just worried about staying in a niche area for too long and not developing my skill set etc. as the other area would be much broader

I agree with the previous reply that the experience as team leader will be useful in getting jobs in the future. Although you are in a niche team the skills as team leader will be important to move up the ladder. Enjoy where you are while gaining more experience and then make a move.

Goose76

My general observations on work friends:

- I think they can be nice to have.

- If people do not want to have work friends or socialise with work at all, that is their prerogative. People's wishes need to be respected. Having lived abroad, I find Irish offices terrible for this. Don't badger someone to be a person they don't want to be - they're already in work!

- If you do wish to have work friends, my advice is spread yourself thinly around the workplace. i.e: don't pigeonhole yourself to one clique or one or two people. So many times I've seen people latch onto only one or two colleagues and then find themselves completely isolated socially in the workplace when those one or two people leave.

- Generally work friendships are friendships of convenience and you won't remain friends once one or both of you leave the job.

in terms of advice to the OP, I think it depends on your age and priorities, to be perfectly honest. If you have a mortgage and a family, maybe more money is the bottom line. If you're younger and salary isn't the be all and end all, by all means stay where you are.

Is this an internal promotion up for grabs? I'm curious as to how you know for sure that the atmosphere in the new role would be different from a social perspective.

mrbrightside11

Thanks all. Regardless of friends I guess that it is just hard to know when to move on, whether I am better off gaining more experience as a team leader or move to the new area and gain experience in an area that could open up new opportunities for me. A lot of factors to consider!

BuboBubo

PointHop123 wrote: »

I am sort of the opinion that while it is good to have nice colleagues, that these are not real friendships except on a rare occasion

The work environment places us in a position where we spend more time with our colleagues than with our family, but once you (or a colleague leave) then the friendship usually withers.

I wouldn't stay in a job simply because I like my colleagues. Work needs to facilitate your outside life.

This ^^^

As for relationships of the romantic kind, usually ends in disaster, and a sh1te working environment for all surrounding colleagues.

I'm friendly with colleagues when I'm in work, but don't socialize with them outside of work. Not snobbery or anything, just like to keep work and home life seperate.

I also eat my lunch alone, because it's nice to recharge my batteries and not listen to everyone's woes and turmoils on my break.

lawred2

mrbrightside11 wrote: »

Hey all,

How important do you think work friends are? I’m lucky enough to be in a good job with a great bunch of people around me, including my manager. Great atmosphere and environment day to day that I don’t mind coming to work for. I have been made a team leader for just over a year now so the money is decent enough.

But I have been approached about moving jobs. The benefits and money are the same but I know the team and they are much older than me, no atmosphere at all. The area I am currently in is a bit niche and this team works in a much broader area so in terms of progression there could be more options or more money in the long run?

Any thoughts?

Just don’t want to leave on a whim and miss my team / the working environment. Also wouldn’t be a team leader anymore essentially starting from the bottom of a new team.

Appreciate your thoughts as I am a terrible over thinker / worrier!! :-)

Work friends are circumstantial. You'll forget about that as soon as you move on. And they you.

They are acquaintances.

You might meet the odd one who you'll make a long term friendship with. But it's rare.

Ultimately I wouldn't put too much value in them and I wouldn't factor then into career decisions.

B_ecke_r

comes down to a balancing act really,

the atmosphere in work is absolutely crucial IMO it makes people want to come to work.

but then eventually you need to take a more "grown-up" role it seems,

currently, I'm in an office environment without about 6 or 7 people who could go from one end of the week to the next without so much as a 5-minute chat.

some contrast to my previous role

Augme

mrbrightside11 wrote: »

Thanks all. Regardless of friends I guess that it is just hard to know when to move on, whether I am better off gaining more experience as a team leader or move to the new area and gain experience in an area that could open up new opportunities for me. A lot of factors to consider!

Having experience of managing people will open lots of new opportunities though. The principle of managing people isn't that different from one field of work to another. If you have good experience managing people you can manage people in IT, finance, customer service, sales etc and your knowledge of those areas isn't really that important.