Thursday, May 30, 2024

School Friends Versus Work Friends

When you're in school and you make friends, there is an underlying substance there which is as follows: both you and your friends are fighting against the challenges of the education system.

When you work at a company, there is no such thing to bond over. If you want, you can argue that everyone at the company is fighting together to acquire money and time from customers, but this isn't regarded as a sacred custom the way school is. It's also presented to the adult as a selfish, or at least of-self-interest, pursuit. There is no element of good-faith like there is in studying for a school class. Young students aren't really aware of what the private sector business world is like. They study based on trust. They are promised that studying is a good idea. It is never clear whether such study is an exercise of monetary self-interest, or one that is for the health and mental well-being of the student.

I think this is why making friends on the job is harder than making friends at school.

When I was in my 20s and working at my first job, there came a weekend when a lot of the young guys went on a snowboarding trip. I went with them. We were bonding but the friendships that formed from that company where way more strained and of-shaky-foundation than the friends I made in school.

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