Nobody really talks about how strange coworker relationships are.
You apply for a job because you need money, benefits, experience, or maybe just somewhere to be from 8 to 5. Then suddenly, you are spending more waking hours with a group of strangers than you are with some of the people you actually chose to have in your life.
And somehow, somewhere between complaining about management, covering each other’s breaks, sharing snacks, and sending that one look across the room when somebody says something ridiculous, relationships start forming.
Some of those people become family.
You meet coworkers who make bad shifts easier. The ones who know when you are having a rough day before you even say anything. The ones who bring you food, check on you when you call out, celebrate your birthday, listen to you complain about the same problem for the fourth time, and somehow become part of your life outside of work.
You start out saying, “Hey, do you know where they keep the extra paper?”
A year later, you know their mama’s name, their relationship drama, what they order from Starbucks, and exactly why they are irritated when they walk through the door on Monday morning.
And sometimes those friendships survive long after the job does.
You can quit, get fired, transfer, move across the country, or swear you will never step foot in that building again, and somehow that person stays.
Those are the good ones.
Then there is… the other category.
The coworkers you absolutely could have gone your entire life without meeting.
The ones who make you question whether teamwork was ever a good idea.
They know everybody’s business except their own. They somehow disappear every time there is actual work to do. They have been “just about to do that” for three hours. They tell the supervisor everything. They complain about everybody while somehow being the main problem.
And there is always at least one coworker who makes you sit in the parking lot before your shift thinking, “Do I really need this job?”
Yes. Yes, unfortunately, you probably do.
Work relationships can also be complicated because you did not necessarily choose these people.
In regular life, if someone annoys you, you can simply stop dealing with them.
At work?
See you tomorrow at 8:00.
You might have absolutely nothing in common outside of the fact that both of you need a paycheck and think the break room microwave smells weird.
Yet somehow, you learn how to coexist.
And maybe that is what makes coworker relationships so interesting.
They teach you a lot about people.
You learn patience.
You learn boundaries.
You learn who you can trust.
You learn that not everybody who laughs with you is your friend, and not everybody who is quiet around you dislikes you.
You learn that some people are meant to be part of your life beyond the building, while others were simply meant to teach you how to professionally say, “Per my last email.”
Every coworker does not have to become your best friend.
Some relationships are meant to stay at work.
Some people are simply your “good morning” person, your lunch-break person, your “did you see that email?” person, or the person you exchange one look with during a meeting because both of you know this could have been an email.
And honestly, there is something kind of beautiful about that too.
Not every connection has to become deep to matter.
But every once in a while, a job gives you somebody you never expected.
A real friend.
A person who started as a name on the schedule and somehow became someone you cannot imagine never having met.
So yes, jobs give us paychecks, experience, stress, random meetings, and occasionally snacks in the break room.
But they also give us people.
Some become family.
Some become lifelong friends.
Some become funny stories you tell years later.
And some?
Well…
Some become people we are perfectly happy to leave right there in the employee group chat.
—Karinna Sorelle ♥