Ever since we were kids, we constantly had to make new friends every time we changed schools from primary, secondary and college/university. We all started as newbies and then had to find people we clicked with and they ultimately became our friends. As we get older, having a few close friends became more important than having hundreds of acquaintances because we’ve shared our private lives with those closest to us and most likely count on those friends for both good and bad moments.
However, once you start work, whether it be an internship, part-time or full-time job, the dynamics seem to change a lot, especially if you are the newbie. It almost feel like you are intruding in some way because of the glares and stares even though a majority of people in the office are tolerable. Everyone has their office gossip and knows whos getting married, inside jokes about one another or how their trip to some tropical paradise went. Your boss introduces you to each member of the team as you shake hands, smile and forget their name and role within the company almost instantly. Standard procedure, but you feel a bit more comfortable having at least one very brief exchange of words, even though you may never speak to them ever again.
A few days become weeks where you have settled in quite well and make brief remarks on peoples’ random chit chat, listen to several unfortunate experiences or read out ridiculous emails in a sarcastic tone – basically small talk. But small talk is great in an office environment because who wants to work in complete silence all day everyday? Aside from that, it’s actually quite difficult to get to know personal details about a person unless you eat with them for lunch or they approach you with a question first. Finding out via hot gossip and eavesdropping is another interesting way of course. I guess it’s always the ‘challenge’ at the start to mingle and try to make your mark in a new work environment, whether you pretend to be someone you’re not. By pretending I mean being more social and talkative than you’re used to in order to seem more interesting and meet new people. Or you could just be you and feel the vibes from certain people that you think you will click with.
With that being said, you go into work day after day after day but you realize that you don’t actually ‘know’ who you work with. You see each other everyday for about 9 hours or so, do some work, go home with the usual “see you tomorrow” or “have a great weekend”, nothing substantial, out of courtesy I suppose. I am actually interested in finding out what people are going to be doing during the weekend and then asking about how it went, not because I am nosy, but I made the effort and they responded back with an answer longer than a couple of words and made a brief connection. However, I’ve never been in a situation where I would call/text colleagues to hang out outside of work and just treated them like I would with any friend – lunch, coffee, shopping, drinks maybe even a movie…or a one night stand! Kidding.
I don’t really know what it would take to get to know a colleague to be more than just someone you see at work. Not that I am desperate for new friends but because that person would bring a nice change to the group of friends you already have. You also don’t want to be too eager beaver to the point where that someone thinks you have a crush on them, straight or gay. But then again they might just say the latter because for a mini self-flattery session.
Anyway! I think the most important thing at the beginning is to try and feel as comfortable as you can within the team and it always helps if your colleagues are there to support you and ‘answer any questions you may have’ even if you know they are just being polite to your face because you have to, not like you will be spending quality time together any time soon. It just takes time before you realize that people know more things about you than you actually thought.
rainbowblabbles 