I don’t see why my colleagues should be my friends. Then again I live in Germany and it seems to be very much not the culture to mix those two things here
I am German and this statement catches me by surprise. All of my friends from a lot of different fields would agree that workplace friends are a very important pillar of our lives.
I think there are many strategies to get your own needs met. Keeping friends and work separate doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy; it’s more about individual choice. My peers would not want to work in places without friendship.
"your coworkers aren't your friends" is a thing that came to us along with industrial revolution. When you live in a small village during medieval times you're going to be friends with everyone, whether you like it or not, and you'll spend most of your life working with your immediate family. But when industrial revolution came, people started working together with strangers in giant factories. And let's be honest, from the perspective of factory owner, it's best if strangers stay strangers. If they start getting buddy-buddy with each other not only you'll see workplace conflicts, but also they might organise and demand something.
If you paid attention to what I wrote you'd see a clear reason why having friends at work benefits you in capitalist globalist times, but I guess you're just antisocial, and you're trying to logic your way into that preference, instead of admitting that it's just a preference.
> someone who is not an enemy and who you can trust
Here's another:
> a person who you know well and who you like a lot
Don't you think it's beneficial to trust and like your colleagues? I personally find it helpful. Few of us do jobs of our dreams, so having friends at work is nice. You don't have to invite them to your birthday and family events to call them friends.
This. Its not really friendship (although sometimes it does turn into that too!) but a human connections. Understanding that the people that you’re working with are humans with hobbies, families and other interests makes it much more enjoyable to work with them. This is especially true for highly creative fields like Software Design. You’re also likely to create connections with people you may not work closely with (eg from Sales, from another team etc) that can lead to a better understanding of different perspectives of the company/product.
I think there are many strategies to get your own needs met. Keeping friends and work separate doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy; it’s more about individual choice. My peers would not want to work in places without friendship.