Know Thy (Work) Friends by Scott O'Malley

Or, the self-importance in being earnest.

Walking into their first job, recent college graduates fall into two categories: Dell interns, and Earnest Believers. The former wouldn’t read an essay like this so let’s quash them immediately and focus on the latter.

At the office, you have your friends at work, and your Work Friends. The first group is insanely obvious. They’re the fun people you meet for coffee at Chotchkies, or happy hour at Texas Loosey’s. Holiday parties and birthday cakes, they’re the people who track the boss’s most recent TOGE (trail of gaseous excretion.)

But the second group is not so overt and well known. Right now, there are players in the office who see your potential as a professional. They look after you in meetings, at the water cooler, and out of the office. The reality is- they exist. The tragedy is- you may never know it. These are your work friends, and they need to be acknowledged and treasured.

Let’s reflect for a moment. Remember the guy in college who held your right leg during that record-breaking keg stand? He becomes your instant friend, because, well, you couldn’t have done it without him. Pardon the subsequent sweeping generalization, backed by the previous inane example, because the message is rather clear: In college, everyone is your friend. Or at least it seems that way.

Thing is, it’s easy to carry this naïve attitude into the workplace and see everybody as your friend simply because they’re nice to you. These days, everybody’s nice, and that’s the worst part (another essay for another time.) But it’s important to realize the veterans in the office flock to the new college kid because they’re always looking for an excuse to dust off their scrolls of ancient college lore. This is perfectly fine banter for the banal Monday lunch convo, but your career requires a more sophisticated approach.

Being young and earnest, the natural instinct is to listen to everybody. After all, they know better, right? Hardly. It’s woefully ironic that at the time when you’re in most need of advice, is the very time you’re least prepared to deal with it. Career advice, whether sought after or spontaneously offered, is like a clump of Earth, which needs to be shaken through a sifter of discernment before revealing the golden nuggets. In other words, when it comes to your career, don’t listen to everybody. The reasoning is fairly straight forward.

People in the office have an opinion of you as a person, and as a professional. Sometimes they’re the same, often they’re not. It’s easy to assume that since someone likes you as person, they see your professional potential. And this is incredibly misleading. Just ask a friend who’s been laid off. They’ll talk about the penetrating attitude shift that occurs on that forgetful day. Suddenly, everyone is a battle-hardened professional. Those who survive the slaughter act as if they instinctively know why they were chosen to stay. And the ensuing votes of sympathy are soaked in condescension.

Well, you want to avoid this environment, which is why it’s imperative to discover your work friends. So let’s breakdown the office psyche regarding the career matrix. People fall into three categories: those who label you, those who don’t care, and the aforementioned work friends.

No matter your position, you have a label. Assistant, Coordinator, Tech, whatever. Those who like to label are infatuated with stability, and it’s tempting for them to permanently stick a label to your forehead. See, if you’re in your place, they’re in their place, and the check is in the mail, and all is good in the ‘hood. However, the mere mentioning of a promotion, or of a diagonal leap to a higher position is intimidating. Not because they’re jealous of you, but because it forces them to consider their own movement, or the times they should have moved, or could have moved, and so on. In other words, the highly respected office equilibrium has been breached. Ask one of t

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