[yulaow]

I disagree strongly. I saw time over time what happens to the team when even just a single (new) coworker starts to act hostile, ruins the general mood or just doesn't click with the way the rest of the team interacts... and it can really distrupt the collaboration effort in a deep but hard to notice way.

[astura]

Yet that person can still be an incredibly pleasant person to get coffee with. OTOH, you can have absolutely nothing in common with someone and even disagree with their life philosophy on a fundamental level yet they can be a perfectly fine person to work with.

"We are friends outside of a work setting" just doesn't correlate to "we work well together." What "we work well together" correlates to is actually "they are professional and respectful, they can do their job, and they have a good work ethic."

[emerongi]

Has nothing to do with inviting someone to a coffee. A person can be pleasant to work with and not a great conversationalist. Plus many assholes are not assholes on the surface anyway.