Colleagues and Friends

When is a colleague considered a friend? Are good colleagues automatically considered friends or is there some fine line that must be crossed? Someone posed me this question recently which led me thinking of how I would define it.

You may encounter some really nice colleagues at work, people whom you enjoy working with and have good communication and teamwork. You may even talk to them often and share a common degree of understanding. From all the signs they could potentially be good friends so would be the identifiers that separate friends from merely good colleagues?

1)A significant component of your conversations should deviate from work/workplace related issues.

If you find yourself engaged in long conversations bitching about work, bitching about other colleagues, bitching about bosses but little else, then this person is most likely just a good colleague. To me, a friend is someone whom you would converse on topics unrelated to work like for instance share your interest, passions and other aspects of your personal life.

2)Meet for activities unrelated to work.

No matter how good a working relationship, a person is just a colleague if you would hardly ever meet them out of a working environment. This is all part of the socializing aspect of being a friend where you spend your free time to do activities together. These things are what normal friends would do.

Often circumstances may not be conducive for colleagues to cross over the threshold to being a friend perhaps due to long working hours or a hectic schedule that leaves precious little time for anything else, but somehow if the person is suited as a friend, such hurdles are easily overcome. Having thought about all this, it appears to me that while one can have many good colleagues at work, few ever cross the threshold into being a friend. For it needs effort, sincerity and perhaps both time and opportunity for a good working relationship to ‘graduate’ to the next level.

All this brings to mind a much publicized incident reported in the media years ago, when Fann Wong uttered that she and Zoe Tay were “Just colleagues not friends”. It was blown up to be some indicator of a rivalry brewing between the 2 of them and Fann was criticised for being too blunt. However, in retrospect, poor Fann might have been maligned for an innocent remark.

Perhaps she simply had a strict definition of what constitutes a friend.:)