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Everyday life in the office - the place where friendships are formed (symbol image)
Photo: Franziska & Tom Werner / Getty Images
When I recall one of the most important encounters of my adult life, the setting looks like this: a wooden desk with red legs, a metal chest of drawers, a large monitor.
Behind the monitor I see a carelessly pinned-up bun of brown hair.
This is Carol.
Caro has just sat down at the desk opposite and opened a Tupperware can of banana quark.
She leans over and says, "Hey, you're new, aren't you?"
Six years later, Caro and I danced like we cried through the night, we were together in Amsterdam and in the Algarve, we met each other's parents.
We send each other dozens of chat messages and just as many cute dog photos every day.
Work friends as best friends
Even if we no longer work in the same company: Caro is a work friend.
Without the work, I probably would never have met her.
And not just her.
In the city where I live, I actually know all my close friends thanks to work – working face-to-face, in the office.
I don't want to imagine what my social environment would be like if I had started my job in times of the corona pandemic and working from home.
I probably wouldn't have one.
The home office was a necessity for many employees at the beginning of the pandemic, but it is now also a convenience.
Even now, many do not want to give up the opportunity to work from home - although the infection process in many places allows teams to meet again in person.
There are certainly good reasons for this.
For example, that the corona virus is far from defeated and that crowds of people continue to pose a risk of infection.
Or that work and family life can be better combined if the place of work is flexible.
For me, the pure (and even the predominant) remote work remains more of a nightmare than a pipe dream.
For interpersonal reasons.
Growing up also means spending an increasing part of your life at work.
Especially when you start your first job, it can feel like there is not much left of the day other than work.
Parties, hobbies, sports club?
Is there still, yes.
Nevertheless, the opportunities to meet new people are becoming fewer.
In this respect, it is not surprising that in a survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion in 2010, half of the respondents said: »I met my friends at work.«
The work friendship sometimes does not have the best reputation.
It's always a bit suspected of being a friendship of convenience, a forced alliance because you're stuck in the same office.
But let's face it, chance plays a big part in most relationships.
They came about because you lived in the house next door, sat in the same row at school or stood just as clueless in front of the map during the orientation week at the university.
Why should it be worse when the coincidence that brings friends together is the employer's choice?
Especially since it is not purely arbitrary.
After all, people who work in the same industry also, at best, have common interests that got them exactly there.
And common interests are known to be a good basis for a friendship.
But they can be found out above all in a personal exchange, not in a team call.
No friendship without a chat in the coffee kitchen
I've now had two and a half years of home office and hybrid work behind me.
I got to know new colleagues, through the cameras on our laptops and sometimes over lunch in the canteen.
Despite all my sympathy, they have remained strangers to me.
Because we no longer sit across from each other every day, no longer celebrate every success together or suffer together during every overtime hour.
Real closeness only arises in personal conversations, in chance encounters in the coffee kitchen and in shared feelings.
In the home office and, yes, also in hybrid work, this is neglected.
You should consider this when deciding on a working model, especially at the beginning of your career.
I know that my work friendships are worth a lot, at least since they survived an acid test.
Not only Caros and my professional paths have separated, this is also the case with many other friends of mine.
If it were true that only necessity kept us together, then relationships would have broken down.
But they are not.
On the contrary: they are just as beautiful, maybe even more beautiful.
At the weekend I sold old clothes at the flea market with Hannah, without her dry jokes this event would have been unbearable.
Next week I'm going for drinks with Viktor, who keeps expanding my horizons with his wide range of interests.
And then Vicky comes over for the weekend, whom I can call any time of the day or night if I ever lose my nerve again.
How do I know all these people?
You guessed it.
