’ ve recently seen some posts on social media sites advising people not to become friends with coworkers, and to avoid sharing personal information with them.

I hope that viewpoint doesn’ t become a trend.

Of course, it’ s not likely you’ ll be good friends with all your work colleagues, and you certainly need to use judgment about who you trust.

But steadfastly refusing to befriend some of your work colleagues may cause you to miss out on relationships that could add to your happiness both at work and at home.

I admit that I tend to trust people and be friendly until they let me know they aren’ t interested or prove untrustworthy.

Happily for me, most of the people I worked with throughout my 40-plusyear career became friends as well as colleagues.

Some were closer than others, of course, but few stayed merely colleagues.

I understand that having coworkers as friends carries the potential to create conflicts, but the understanding and respect that come with friendship can also help solve them.

A Few Examples

Two weeks ago, I golfed for the first time since August 2013.

One of the perks of being retired( more or less) is that I have time to do things like play a little golf occasionally.

As you can imagine, I did not score well.

I was never really good at the game, even when I played once a week, and 11 years off didn’ t improve my skill or help me lose my bad swing habits.

But I didn’ t care. The reason I took to the links was that the outing was a chance to spend time with three good friends who I hadn’ t had a chance see much in the past 15 years, or so. That aspect of the day was perfect. I really enjoyed the chance to catch up with all of them, hear the latest about their families and what they’ re currently doing.

All three of those gentlemen had become my friends in the 1980s when we all worked for the Manitowoc Company.

In fact, the fellow who organized the golfing get together had ushered at my second wedding and had met his future wife because he and I were friends who’ d met at work and his bride-to-be worked with my wife.

My wife, Wendy, and I just celebrated our 37th anniversary, and that friend and his wife just celebrated their 36th.

My three golfing partners from a couple weeks ago were part of a group of 10 colleagues who all worked together, and also enjoyed doing things together outside of work.

Many of us played on the same golf, softball, pool, and co-ed volleyball teams.

For a number of years, we and our significant others also went house to house as a group to celebrate New Year’ s Eve.

All of the interaction in and out of work helped us understand each other, enjoy our time together and produce some great creative work.

And that good feeling extended outside of just our communication department.

As we were the in-house communications department for the corporation, we worked with all its divisions, including those that made cranes, boom trucks, ice machines, ships, debarking equipment and subcontract products like tunneling machines and stamping presses.

So we all were friends with coworkers in all of those businesses.

And since we worked with all the company’ s departments, from top management, to accounting, sales, engineering, service, technical services, manufacturing, engineering, shipping, maintenance and information technology, we all had coworkers who were friends throughout the company.

Those relationships not only helped make work fun and productive, it helped make interactions with those other departments smooth.

Unfortunately, there came a time when a new group of top managers decided that having an large in-house communications department wasn’ t part of its strategic vision, and so three of us ended up staying in different parts of the company, but most of the department had to find new employers.

But even when we were no longer coworkers, the friendships endured.

Similar Story Other Places

Ever since 2006, I’ ve worked from home, both as a freelance journalist and as editor of various construction, equipment and engineering magazines.

During that time, I’ ve worked with teams of colleagues who are spread all across the United States and Canada, as well as with some editors in Europe.

Some of them I’ ve never met in person. Others I’ ve seen a couple of times at company meetings. Still, others I’ ve seen more frequently when we’ ve attended industry events together.

But that remoteness has not changed my belief that being friends with coworkers is almost always good for success at work, and for happiness and enrichment in life overall.

In fact, although I’ ve been fortunate to have enjoyed so many wonderful coworker friendships over the decades, one of the best is among the most recent— and it came when I worked remotely.

It’ s the relationship I’ ve enjoyed with my Heartland-Catalyst coworker and former boss, Pat Sharkey, who retired last June, six months before I did.

I’ m not sure how much traction the notion of avoiding all friendships with coworkers is getting, but I hope not much.

I hate to think of how much joy I would have missed out on if I didn’ t have such wonderful friendships with coworkers throughout my career.

32 CRANE HOT LINE ® July 2024 • www. cranehotline. com