Unlikely Connections: Making Friends At Work.
A nostalgic post about how, during my year as a nine-to-fiver (yes, that's a thing), I met some awesome people who made my experience more wholesome.
I'm sure you'd agree that being a gig worker can be a lonely experience. I used to envy the way friends spoke about their workplace friendships, while all I had for company was the occasional audiobook or a new playlist (like the one I’m currently listening to, which I will share below). Working as a freelancer straight out of university was a trippy experience: no one understood why I had such odd working hours, or how I could get dressed, go out for a meeting at 4 pm, and work throughout the night. And then there were awkward conversations where I could not chip in with my own hilarious story about what happened at the office that week. I’d just resort to laughing awkwardly while thinking about my own lonely experience with my tea mug for company. All this changed when I finally got the chance to experience having work buddies. And I finally get it.
I was nervous, I won’t lie. Well, more like nervously excited and curious to meet my new colleagues. In the first few days, I didn’t have a clue what my role would realistically entail, so I set out to virtually meet as many people as I could. My journey in the world of work has been somewhat unusual compared to my peers; it was my first time holding a full-time, office-based position. Since graduating I had always been freelancing and working remotely, leaving me with zero water-cooler conversation skills. The most interactive experiences I had working with clients were with projects that would run for a couple of weeks, riddled with update meetings where I would take every opportunity to have my clients choke on my dry jokes (awful, I know). Can you imagine my excitement when I realized I would be part of a little community at work? I had witty quips parked at the tip of my tongue, ready to impress. The reality was quite different though.
I found myself well-liked by most people I interacted with within my team, but I really formed meaningful connections with the unlikeliest of people. Since this was at the height of the pandemic lockdowns, bonds were only as strong as internet connection would allow. This did make it difficult to really foster connections with people, as most of us were getting Teams fatigued with all the endless meetings, update calls and mandatory Friday team quizzes. Despite all of this, I managed to find my tribe within the team I was assisting and thus unexpected connections were formed.
At first, I was sceptical about how appropriate it was to make friends with colleagues. I got my close (non-work) friends warning me that it was not a good idea. They had had scathing experiences with trust in the workplace and were more than overprotective of my naivety about the world of nine-to-fivers. So I proceeded with caution mingled with excitement as Teams calls between myself and a few other colleagues became more frequent, casual and interesting. These relationships made my experience richer, funnier and more significant to my growth as a person more than anything I experienced in the past year at my workplace.
Of course, my friends who advised caution were right, their concerns weren’t at all misplaced. There were some challenging situations where I had to manage people I considered friends, and I had to be indirectly managed by people I considered friends. This went a long way to complicate things at work. How was I to suddenly give tasks and ‘crack the whip’ to get my work buddies moving on a project? Was I to talk to them about it during work hours, or use our connection to understand why they weren’t delivering? It was conflicting. At some point downright anxiety-inducing. But I learnt how to balance my personal feelings with what I needed to achieve professionally, and in the end, managed to somewhat keep friendship to lunch hours and after hours. That wasn’t without its own challenges, though.
I can attest to connections being imperative to human growth because in the past year I grew more than I expected. I went in hoping to at least be well-liked enough to avoid hostile emails (oh, I still got those), and I left with strong connections bonded by compassion, memorable moments and camaraderie. Leaving my job left me with bittersweet feelings of hope for the future, excitement for the next part of my journey, and sadness to be leaving the familiarity of sharing career discoveries, lunchtimes, tears of frustration and laughter at the absurdities of being professionally entangled with some bizarre personalities. Along with stressful moments chasing impossible deadlines, all-nighters, shocked laughter because someone went on a rant while unmuted in a meeting, and everything in between.
I love being a freelancer, and while working with awesome people as a nine-to-fiver went a long way to making my experience so much more enriching, I would still choose to freelance because it offers me so much more. Even though all I have is a playlist and tea mug to make up for water cooler conversations.
This week’s to listen:
I’ve not managed to catch the KPop bug yet, but I do enjoy listening to Korean RnB. It’s got a great LoFi undercurrent that really works well for me as background music while I work. Give this KRnB playlist a listen; it keeps my mood elevated throughout the day.