We spend, on average, a third of our days at work. If we’re lucky enough to have a job. Not everyone is.
We may not necessarily like that or the job, but we better get along with the people we work with and it better be the majority. You don’t have to like everyone in your office or at your workplace, but the more people you get along with the better your days will go.
I don’t like everybody in my office. But I do like the people I work with directly and have worked with and there are surprisingly many of them after two years in this company.
It occurred to me the other day how nice it actually is to chat with your neighbour about random things, show them something funny on your screen that just so happens to be related to the job you’re both doing.
It gives me a sense of rarely appreciated familiarity to sit down to lunch with these people. Or join a group of them at a table without feeling like an intruder, but instead being welcomed with friendly smiles.
If I am alone during lunch, I am because I choose to. I never have to be, though. There’s always company to be found.
There’s been plenty of occasions to go out after work or socialize outside of work on the weekend. Colleagues becoming friends is a good thing. One that I have found to occur many times and is surprisingly common in my current place of employ.
We always have little birthday-dos at work with cake and a card and a small gift. The company organizes in-house drinks once a month. Those happen to be today, but I’ll be rather busy and won’t be going. But I will be joining the next time, because that will be my last opportunity before I leave.
I’ve been lucky enough to always work with people that I got along with. I have still friends from workplaces that I left years ago, in countries on the other side of the globe.
And I’ve never departed with a light heart. It’s not the job that I ended up missing or being sorry to have left. It’s the people I leave behind, the friends I’ve made. That old familiar place that I spent so much time in.
The next time I am going through this is only seven weeks away. I will miss many things once I will have left, but more than anything I will miss the people here.
Rest assured I will say goodbye, as always, with an “I’ll be seeing you”.
2clouds 