By Valencia • 8 Comments
Getting a job with your best friend might seem like the perfect situation. You can drive to work together, have lunch together and talk throughout the day. Although this might seem like the perfect work situation, there are reasons why you should never work with your BFFs.
You and your best friend might be each other's cheerleader, but at the end of the day, you might be vying for the same promotion or projects. When you and your best friend work together and hold the same position, someone might get ahead faster than the other. Can you handle this? If not, this can fuel competition between the two of you which could impact your relationship.
You go to work to do your job and make money, and unfortunately, working with your best friends can be too much of a distraction during the day. Rather than work, you may spend the greater portion of the day shooting the breeze, gossiping and catching up on other things. This can result in getting behind on work and missing deadlines, which is the fastest way to get on your bosses bad side.
One of the best things about having a best friend is there’s someone to talk with after work and on the weekends. You can vent about work or talk about life. When you and your best friend work together and spend 40 or more hours together every week, there might be little to talk about when you're hanging out after hours.
Some people have a strict policy about discussing work after hours, and they try to keep these parts of their lives very separate. When you don't work with your friends, you can have an evening or weekend conversation without bringing up work-related topics. But when you and your best friend work closely together, office drama can spill over into your personal life. Rather than a night of talking about pop culture or current events, you might spend the evening talking about work.
Spending too much time with someone can cause problems in the relationship. This is why some couples constantly fight and end up separating after years of marriage. The same situation can apply to best friends. If you’re always together and there’s never any separation, you might get on each other's nerves and feel you need to spend some time apart to avoid permanently damaging the relationship.
If you’ve been friends throughout high school, went to the same college and now you're working in the same office, there's a tendency to become co-dependent on each other, to the point where you might be unable to stand on your own two feet. Although working with your best friend is enjoyable, it's also a good idea to exert a little independence and make it on your own.
If it’s always been the two of you against the world, jealousy can rear its ugly head if your best friend becomes close with others in the office. You may start to feel that you’re not getting the same amount of attention, or you may fear someone taking your place.
There are pros and cons to working with your best friends. Ultimately, you have to decide whether this work situation is the best decision for your friendship. What are other reasons not to work with your BFFs?