How Close are you to Office Work Colleagues

thunderb0lt

Hey all, this wondering how close people are with their office colleagues.

I am 6 weeks into a new job. I find it a bit strange that in my office people tend not to speak to each other. I mean some people come in and are at the desk 09:00-17:00, no words spoken. Some people even have lunch at the desk, I need to get away from the computer screen at lunctime!

There about 60 people on the floor, I was probably introduced to about 5 people only. Just been a couple of awkward weeks with shadowing/training.

RedSoleShoes

The jobs I've had have either been one way or the other - very chatty and friendly or nothing at all (sounds like your current job!). Not sure whether this was the reason but I've never stayed long in the jobs which were the latter....

parsons

To be honest about it, most people at work today have their own lives to live. It is generally accepted now that lunch at the desk is the norm. I don't think everybody is ignoring you, and as you say, they are like that with everybody not just you.

Maybe they are just trying to work you out?

The days of the pub every lunchtime for an hour or two have finished. The idea of endless excuses for an afternoon in the boozer - birthdays, celebrations etc will not now go down well with management.

Maybe they just see their job as getting to work, doing their work and going home - that is what they are paid to do.

My days of a whisky bottle in the desk drawer for a morning snifter with coffee and a warmer with tea in the afternoon finished years ago.

hyperfunk_d

Depends what sort of company you work for in my experience.

Smaller companies in more creative environments have always been extremely friendly - the last one which only had about 90 employees, I was taken around to meet every one of them individually on my 2nd day: a really nice touch to make you feel welcome.

On the flip side, I have worked in a couple of the largest investment banks, where, somehow, it is possible to feel totally isolated on a floor of 500+ people, within a building holding 20,000! One guy I sat next to for 3 months and every morning and night I would say hello, goodbye, have a good day etc, but didn't once have him speak to me in all that time! Crazy.

For me, the people you work with can make or break the job and are therefore extremely important.

Jinx

thunderb0lt wrote: »

Hey all, this wondering how close people are with their office colleagues.

I am 6 weeks into a new job. I find it a bit strange that in my office people tend not to speak to each other. I mean some people come in and are at the desk 09:00-17:00, no words spoken. Some people even have lunch at the desk, I need to get away from the computer screen at lunctime!

There about 60 people on the floor, I was probably introduced to about 5 people only. Just been a couple of awkward weeks with shadowing/training.

I would find that strange too.... not even a conversation about the weather??:rotfl:

Ive been in my job about 3 months now and it has a large open plan area to walk through before reaching our office - I decided I would breeze in with a general 'Good Morning' to everyone daily. Some people just ignore me while others respond... It is quite a friendly place to work though.

If you leave your desk for lunch every day others might follow. Where I used to work the culture was lunch at the desk; but we had a lovely large airy kitchen. So I started going with a book on my own but lots of people followed. A break is good as is conversation Some of my best friends were met at work.

Sambucus_Nigra

We've had to give up cake at coffee breaks as it was becoming a daily ritual.....

but it depends on the culture to be honest....and the old adage 'if you want a friend, be a friend' works as much at work as in school.

I wear soft fluffy clothes and get lots of cuddles at work; thoroughly recommend that approach when you actually like your colleagues

SHIPSHAPE

I've never understood this need to make friends at work.

Sure, be polite and helpful, but I like to choose my friends, who I have known all my life, rather than make friends by simple virtue of working in the same place as someone.

You only end up talking about bloody work, how boring is that?

Sambucus_Nigra

It depends on the work though doesn't it....when one works at something that people are passionate about and more than a little obsessive about; then it's interesting not boring.

SHIPSHAPE

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

It depends on the work tough doesn't it....when one works at something that people are passionate about and more than a little obsessive about; then it's interesting not boring.

Yes, totally agree and only ever having fairly boring jobs this thought has passed me by.

hcb42

I cant imagine working in an office where people didnt speak!

Hermia

I always go out at lunch and my colleagues all stay at their desk. I just need some fresh air. A couple of my colleagues don't have computers at home so I know lunchtime is the only opportunity they get to surf the net.

I wonder if your colleagues are just quiet because of pressure of work? Thanks to financial pressure my department now has half the people we did a couple of years ago, but we still have the same amount of work. Sometimes we do work in silence simply because that is the only way we can get through the work. Or maybe your colleagues have jobs that require high levels of concentration. One of my colleagues has control of a £250,000 budget and she works in silence sometimes because she can't make a mistake with those kinds of figures!

Just talk to people when you can (when making tea or whatever) and see what happens.