You generally spend about 50% of your waking hours at work. You’re surrounded
by people who have a shared purpose and who you have a varying degrees of
things in common with them as well. Being in marketing, you end up working with
very similar people. We share some basic traits, we’re mostly outgoing, enjoy being
around people and use our right brains a little more than our left brains. So it’s
inevitable that you form friendships.
I am a person who does what they say. I try not to bullshit. I keep my
promises as much as I possibly can. So, effectively, if I say I’m going to stay
in touch or say we should keep in touch, it’s because I mean it. When I left the last company, I didn’t send
out the standard firm wide email saying we should all keep in touch and here
are my details, because well, that would be bullshit. I didn’t know 50% of the
people there a d really only wanted to keep in touch with about 10% of those I did.
And in the first month it’s easy. There’s a space where you used to be,
you want to speak to someone familiar. But it then peters off and the
conversations become sporadic. For me, the point of moving on is when you don’t
reply to a message or make a plan and then just drop it. It shows you have no
interest and that we’ve moved on, a case for ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I suppose
that may also be the reason these people don’t even attempt to engage with you
when they do see you. A bit rude I think, but fair enough. I’m sure it happens
all the time.
On the flipside, you get those people who genuinely are your friends despite
the work connection. They make a reciprocal effort and make and keep plans to
see you and catch up. It may not be every week but they do at least do it. And that’s
what really counts. Of my closest friends, only 3 or so are people I used to
work with.
I’ve realised that sometimes you just have to let some people go,
almost like my annual spring clean. You need to close off chapters and move on
to other things and people who have different things in common with you. You learnt
what you could, had some good times and some bad times, but in the end the
friends who stay with you are the ones that matter and that you should really
make the effort with.
It really is a case of if people aren’t adding anything to your life or
your happiness, why are you holding on? Just let them go, close the chapter and
look forward to new experiences with new people.
