r/AskAmericans • u/YakovRS • 3d ago
Question about workplace culture: How would you describe your relationship with you colleagues after working hours?
Hi everyone! I am from the Netherlands and I've recently had a discussion regarding workplace culture. I have a friend from the US who has pretty much only worked white-collar jobs. When he moved here he experienced massive culture shock, primarily regarding workplace culture.
In the Netherlands it's quite common to go for drinks after the day has ended (excluding Monday). We call that a "borrel". He was flabbergasted when learning about the ritual, he told me he usually just clocked out and left to go home.
That seems so cold to me. I am very good friends with my colleagues and we regularly meet up to just talk about life or other stuff.
How do you guys manage officie relationships. Are you good friends with your colleagues or do you just have a couple of people who you like?
Thanks for reading!
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u/GhostOfJamesStrang MyCountry 3d ago edited 3d ago
I am good friends with some of my colleagues, but I have a life outside of that. I have a family and kids and my own hobbies and play sports and so do they.
I have neither the time, nor desire, to go out after work most days. When I was younger, that would have had more appeal, but even then most nights I went out with other friends.
Work friends run the spectrum. I have a couple close colleagues that are practically family. We double date, our kids play together, etc. Others we are strictly professional and are at wildly different stages of life where going to the bar together would make very little sense.
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u/YakovRS 3d ago
Interesting, I suppose that our team is only made of young people which could be a reason we like going for drinks. We usually walk to a bar and stay for up to two hours and then everyone leaves to go home.
Additional question, what do you think of an open office plan? We HATE cubicles here but to my friend it was the greatest thing in the world because of the privacy.
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u/GhostOfJamesStrang MyCountry 3d ago
Open office plans are nice to look at, nice for communication, but terrible for actually focusing and getting work done.
In a modern world with so much communication being done via video call and such, open office plans are annoying.
I prefer an open office plan, generally speaking, if the office also has plenty of conference rooms or alternative work spaces for use for video calls and meetings and stuff.
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u/Writes4Living 3d ago
When I was in college we actively went out after work. Either to a club, ice skating, or dinner.
Nowadays most everyone is just a work colleague but not a friend. I have collected friends along the way and keep in touch with former coworkers but rarely see them. As I got older everyone became busy with their families.
I think a lot of it depends on your workplace. I did it in my 20s but not now. Everyone just wants to get to their life.
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u/JuneBugWhisperer 3d ago
I work with about 1,000 people so being friends with them all would be difficult. I do have great friendships with some of my coworkers. Different relationships with the various friends. One friend and I play table top war gaming together and another I’ve raced motorcycles with. I was in the wedding of a former coworker. I’ve played online gaming with many.
To expect everyday to go out after work with coworker for drinks honestly sounds unhealthy and the expectation that everyone has to participate or you are considered “cold”. Fuck that.
I did NOT take a job to make friends, I work only to feed and take care of my family.
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u/Confetticandi MO > IL > CA 3d ago edited 3d ago
IME, US culture prefers more separation between work life and personal life.
Like, for me personally, I don’t want to be friends with coworkers. I’m perfectly capable of making new friends as an adult outside of work. So, why would I make friends with people who come with work baggage if I can make friends with people who don’t? Who I can actually be my true, unfiltered self with without worrying about affecting workplace professionalism?
Like, if I decide to go to Burning Man and go to the orgy dome with my husband, I would tell my personal friends that. There’s no way in hell I’m telling anyone I work with that. Or even like talking about getting an IUD, or childhood traumas, or funny date stories, or mental illness, or off color jokes or something. I don’t want to talk about those things with coworkers.
Seems like a friendship liability. If I have limited time, I’m investing it in making friends with people I don’t work with. Americans are much more friendly with strangers so it’s easier to do that here.
However, I have had some people I liked who I decided to become friends with after we no longer worked together. Then it wasn’t weird.
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u/Gallahadion 3d ago edited 3d ago
In my current friends group one is a current colleague and another used to work with me and my colleague. We get together (with others) on non-work days on a monthly or every-other-month basis. Sometimes my colleague and I will go out to lunch during the workweek, but mostly when our job takes us off-site (so not often).
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u/hmgg 3d ago
I think this highly depends on the age of the people. I've worked in startups where a lot of people in the early/mid 20s worked and they all went out almost daily after work. But as you get older, are in a relationship, have your own friends and eventually have kids, this drops down significantly as people just have their own shit to do and want to leave work at work.
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u/penelopeclearwater13 3d ago
I like my co workers but I dont want to hang out with them outside of work.
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u/Tsquare43 New Jersey 3d ago
I don't associate with anyone outside of work. I've got numbers in the event of getting sick or being out in the field. Work stays work.
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u/zeezle 3d ago
I'd say my approach is that I'm perfectly happy being friendly with coworkers, but I am cautious about forming deeper friendships. I'd go out to lunch or for drinks after work here and there with them, but probably not multiple times a week (but I also don't really drink much to begin with). Or once in a blue moon something like someone having a cookout where multiple work people are invited is fun.
I'm happy to chat about my personal life in an innocuous way with coworkers - stuff that is salacious to nobody, like my knitting projects, my garden, weekend trips I'm planning, a new restaurant in the area we tried for date night, or whatever. I'm a software engineer so being into video games is very common and something to chat about with coworkers as well. I'm not one of those "no personal conversations at work ever!" people, to me I agree that's a bit strange and cold.
I also get along with people of a wide variety of ages and have never worked with anybody I disliked, so that shapes my views as well. Honestly never had any work issues with anyone and don't really 'play politics' or anything.
But close non-work friends are going to hear about my erotica/romance writing side-hustle, and sexual or darker jokes/morbid humor while "work friends" are definitely not hearing about those. So there's definitely a bit of a boundary there vs "normal" friends. As a woman working in a male-dominated field I also try to avoid anything that could be misinterpreted as flirting or inappropriate.
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u/flora_poste_ Washington 3d ago
In my workplace of the past couple of decades, colleagues are greeted warmly at the beginning of the day, and then we all focus on the very absorbing work at hand. By the end of the day, everyone is happy to leave work behind and return to our personal lives.
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u/cmiller4642 3d ago
I don't go out of my way to associate with them outside of work. I have a life that is separate from my job.
If they said hi to me in public then I would say hi back but we're not going to go hang out.
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u/Pangolin_Knight 3d ago
Other than semi-mandatory bonding activities (catered parties), the only time I've spent with coworkers outside of work was shotgunning a can of wine in the alley behind our liquor store on New Year's Eve. I've never gone for drinks or anything with coworkers outside of that.
I work remote in my current job and we're friendly online but that's it. We don't interact outside of work hours.
I do know that two of my brothers have friends they've made at work that they game with or golf with, and my sister hangs out with her coworkers outside of work, but I feel like that's less the norm than being casual acquaintances.
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u/PersonalitySmall593 3d ago
While its not wholly uncommon for co workers to do this it still isn't the norm. Americans tend to like work and life to be separate. It can cause issues though because for some people Work is the only social interaction they get and when they want to make friends but everyone else rejects this it can cause resentment on both sides. This is what I have always gone though. Because of my hours and distance I live I pretty much go to work and home. My co oworker are either Older and have not interest in hanging out, younger and have no interest in hanging out with someone in their 40s or if they are my age they either have kids or want to get shitfaced.
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u/Littleboypurple Wisconsin 3d ago
My coworkers are just coworkers. I get along with most of them and while some have friends with each other outside of work, going out for the movies or meeting for breakfast, I don't participate in such things. I just clock out and head home.
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u/WarMinister23 3d ago
It honestly depends from place to place. All of my ‘serious’ jobs I’ve had little interaction with coworkers, save a couple who became friends.
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u/panicinbabylon 3d ago
I’m in the US, and I am finding it surprising that so many people never hang out with people outside of work. I’ve worked in the service industry,and corporate - it’s never been odd to have a beer after work with a coworker.
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u/Metal_Man_22 U.S.A 3d ago
I think it’s different for each group of colleagues. I travel for work so I only see my colleagues when I travel to a job. We stay at the same hotel and normally grab drinks and/or food after work a few times per week cuz there’s nothing else to do. In old jobs I spent 8 hours per day with the people and really would rather spend time with my family and friends after work, rather than spend more time with the people I just spent 8 hours with. But I know some coworkers go for “happy hour” after work.
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u/LiqdPT Washington 3d ago edited 3d ago
In the US most people have to drive home. Drinking midweek isn't nearly as common
Additionally, if I get off at 5:00 (on a good day, sometimes I'm there later) and it takes me an hour to drive home (traffic). Then I have to either make or order dinner for my wife and I. And she's in bed by 8:00 or 9:00 because she's up for work at 4am.
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u/docthrobulator Wisconsin 14h ago
I have a city job, so the age range for my coworkers is large. Late teens to early 60s, though trending towards 40s and 50s. We occasionally go out in big groups for after work events; the Wednesday before Thanksgiving for example. Other than that I hang out with a few coworkers regularly or semi regularly for random stuff like bar hopping, day drinking, sporting clays etc.
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u/lovelycosmos Massachusetts 10h ago
I work for a small business where I have known the owners for a very long time. They throw parties once or twice a year and their friends are invited, and so are we. Very few of my coworkers actually go. Which is crazy, because they are rich and have a huge, awesome house. I don't talk to my coworkers outside of work, with the exception of one who is also my neighbor and we help each other out with projects and tasks sometimes.
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u/kactus-cuddles 3d ago
Is your team full of very young people (like <25, maybe <30)?
Going out for drinks with coworkers every day isn’t common in my experience, especially when you’re older and have other obligations and social circles (spouse, kids, your own friend group etc.). People do Happy Hour but that’s usually a once a month planned thing.
I’m friendly with my coworkers, but I don’t feel the need to spend my free time with them when we already spend 8 hours together at work. My workplace is pretty chatty, so we socialize throughout the day anyway. Maybe I just see it differently.