Things Not to Say At Work

There is always a fine line that one walks in their office relationships. It is a story that has come up in the blog and in Astronology a bunch of times. Revolution health wrote an article about it today (click here) and says to approach relationships with care. Especially with cross-gender relationships, this can be good advice.

But why does it have to be like this? It seems to be a pretty crappy way of going about things. Whether a lack of employee/employer loyalty spawns distance between workers in the office place or vice versa, it seems to be a pretty rough situation to deal with. Competing against peers for bonuses, raises, promotions, and sometimes, to keep you job, it seems like it would be almost a disadvantage to help out people you work with and become congenial.

And this trickle-down effect has seemed to spread to colleges and high schools also. Competing for few spots at the top, cut-throat competition seems to be the norm. People try to be the best in high school so they get into a good college and this means being better than your peers. Consequently, people try to be the best in college to get into a good job/grad school and this leads to the same attitude where working together and helping our your peers is indirectly discouraged.

Working in teams with goals tied into the overall performance of everyone seem to be the best way to go about this (such as at Google or other high-tech companies). If people are forced to work in smaller groups, they may form bonds doing this which always strengthens relationships in the workplace and leads to better productivity. Although more time may be spent at the water cooler or talking about the weekend, at least people will enjoy going to work and being among their co-workers.