My friend came to me with a real conundrum yesterday: she’s been asked by her boss to help recruit for a new position in her office. She knows someone that would be perfect for the job, but it’s someone who studied with us and she had a fling with him that ended a bit uncomfortably. I said she should be fair and tell him about the position… but she is worried it will make the atmosphere in her office tense, and she’ll have to deal with it every day. Everyone knows that mixing business and friendship can be difficult. Does that makes mixing business and relationships-that-went-sour a definite No-No?
Thanks for your input Laurel I guess what you’re saying is that I should be making my friend’s well-being a priority? That makes sense. Although, in this economic climate, I feel bad for not helping my old classmates find employment…
Jerushah the way I see it is - at the end of the day if she likes her job and does it well etc bringing someone into the mix with whom there is known tension cannot be good for general company moral or even for her as it could affect her job! At the end of the day why should she risk her job for someone that means next to nothing you know?
I can see why you feel bad for him, but would he do the same for her?
She says that an argument that takes place outside of the office can negatively impact your professional relationship with that person, leading to a negative atmosphere in the office and even a loss of productivity.
I was wondering whether anyone on this site has experienced this? I always thought that striking up friendships with colleagues was good for office morale!!!
Jerushah although I understand where this woman is coming from in her article I think it would be very hard to follow the advice she is giving as you can’t help but get to know people on a more intimate level at work - people come in and talk about thier home life etc etc and you become closer through association, it can’t be helped can it really?
I tend to make close friends with at least one person in each of my jobs - maybe its not a good thing but it cannot be helped!
LOL I suppose it would be pretty miserable if you went to work everyday and tried NOT to make friends with your colleagues. I have to admit, I have also ended up making friendships with one or two of my co-workers at every job I’ve worked in. Because after all, you have many of the same interests - being in the same industry and all.
But while friendships in the office make the days more enjoyable, friends can also distract you from your work! If you add up all those water cooler conversations, coffee breaks and smoke breaks, you’d find hours and hours of wasted time
Yeah I see what your saying but being able to work straight through with no small talk is not what I am capable of! I tend to be able to work and talk at the same time hehe! type and talk lol! Easy peezy!
Standing around gassing for ages is however another issue and should be dealt with!
Wow, I’m impressed! I’ve never been able to master the typing whilst talking thing. I’m the kind of person who can only focus on the job at hand -and everything else gets blanked out.
I think most people are good at multi-tasking these days though. Although I read about an interesting study which found that people who can watch TV, surf the internet and chat on the phone at the same time actually score low in multi-tasking tests! Strange, isn’t it?
lol I think I’m a low multi-tasker! Being the kind of person who can only concentrate on one thing at a time properly, I often feel like I am a real slow poke. Most employers expect you to work on a multitude of projects at once these days, it’s the only way to deal with increasing workloads! And a lot of people seem to enjoy the buzz they get from jumping from one project to the next - but don’t you think this increases our stress levels?
I am more than capable of jumping from one thing to the next and getting things done - the stress comes in when everyone is snapping at your heels wanting it all done now and you have to try and fit it all in! Never happens so really you just get stressed and so do the people who were being demanding in the first place!
I think multi tasking is fine as long as the company that expects you to do it allocates enough time to you to deal with each thing! It isn’t fair otherwise!
I think multi tasking is fine as long as the company that expects you to do it allocates enough time to you to deal with each thing! It isn’t fair otherwise!
I wish that were the case :( unfortunately, both accountancy jobs I’ve worked in haven’t been like that at all. My line managers have always been overloaded with work of their own and had very little time to keep an eye on my workload and deadlines and ensure whether they were fair or not!
Life is such and all that! I think in theory everything works the way they project it to but when things are put into practise it often paints a different picture altogether which can be quite awful really!
I mean in any job I have had I have suffered with that problem and often end up working extra time to get things done with no extra pay - but I guess thats all part of the job right????
My PERSONAL experience leads me to strongly believe that business and friendship don’t gel. I helped a friend of mine get recruited in our company (specifically in our department). The comparatively low workload at that time enabled him to complete his Masters (at times studing during working hours) and while my own professional qualification suffered on one hand, I did get useful work experience that got noticed by the corporate powers that be and led to my promotion after 2 years. That is about the time he completed his Masters although due to his limited work experience and carefree attitude (as per the office grapevine) he wasn’t promoted and that is where I think the attitude problem arose. We’ve had a few arguments especially when I had to take over the function on a temp basis due to the boss being on leave but the friendship stuff is gone. Prior to his joining the company, we used to hang out but we haven’t done that even once since he joined. He hates his job and has tried to switch but obviously in this economic climate thats next to impossible. I try my best to stay away from delegating any work to him because I don’t agree with his attitude and work ethic and while we have diff. responsibiities, at the end of the day its still 2 people in a 3 person dept that pretend to be friends and actually aren’t. Its frustrating at times to be working with someone who doesn’t want to give even 50% to his work and postpone every task thats given to him. Plus my new boss (shortly before my promotion) doesn’t mind piling up work on me but he’s really not too concerned about what work (if any) my friend is doing because my friend’s been telling him he wants out of the dept and/or company (for the past 1.5 years).
Not a day goes by when I don’t think if I made the right decision in recommending him and ruining our friendship.
Wow Retroactive that is awful! That shows a clear lack of respect from your friend really - I mean you would think he would appreciate the fact that you helped him get a job where you worked and do his best to do well and make an effort, more so as you helped him get in etc etc…
To behave like that and especially stop hanging out with you and give you attitude is awful! Not a person worth knowing in the first place really! I’m quite surprised the company don’t get rid of him and replace him with someone a bit more motivated?
I have gotten a friend in at one of my old companies before, but it was in a completely different part of the business so we only ever met for lunch and our work was completely unrelated which was great! I can see how working so closely together could affect your relationship.
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I guess what you’re saying is that I should be making my friend’s well-being a priority? That makes sense. Although, in this economic climate, I feel bad for not helping my old classmates find employment…
