This chapter is the third installment of a four-part weekly series on the importance of friends and friendships in our lives at all stages. This chapter focuses on our adult friends, especially during our working years, and the importance of being a friend in your professional friend.
By now, we are pros at friends and friendship. And it's a good thing because we face many challenges in this stage of life. Whether we're easy to make friends or not, friends are badly needed now. Imagine forming relationships, raising children, surviving family life, wrestling with the economy and jobs, and providing for our loved ones without the support of friends. Life events, such as losing loved ones and our health and living our final years, can be difficult without the help of our friends.
Through retelling some of my own experiences, I hope you remember some of your friends and life-shaping friendships and their value in your life. Friends are critical to our life-long development and how we grow to relate within and as a community. Friends may have been or may be few or many. We can rediscover lessons from past experiences and recognize them as life-enhancing and essential to our growth and well-being.
THE PROFESSIONAL YEARS
In my career, I was a certified professional urban planner. I advised public and private decision-makers and stakeholders on what shaped the urban and general environment. I analyzed the trends, how they affected the future, and how they would likely affect the community. I proposed choices, tradeoffs, and their impacts on different parts of the community. I built community consensus and presented an integrated plan to elected officials.
It sounds esoteric, but it is just essential thinking and rational forethought. But boy, does it have a way of angering people and upsetting politicians and other stakeholders. And when you're involved in that fray daily, you sure see the value of friends and friendships. You learn who your friends are and how willing they are to support you or abandon you.
My working experience is not unique to urban planning. It's how life plays out in our daily lives and our work and personal relationships. We can attract and sustain long friendships and relationships that prove vital to how well we survive, thrive, or recover from failures, setbacks, and challenges if we're lucky. And those are usually things over which we can develop and choose in ways that provide good outcomes.
But work environments are notoriously hard to maneuver, control, or direct outcomes. Relationships, responsibilities, priorities, and interactions are frequently defined for us and out of our control. They can be growth-enhancing or toxic and dangerous. It can take a while to figure out the landscape, especially if it's dynamic and changing.
Here are some hints based on my experience. Try to educate yourself about what's positive and enhancing for you, other people, and your productivity, and make your own appropriate and informed assessments of any situation. Expect change and learn to embrace and constantly adjust to it. Know your boundaries, and don't wait to define them once compromised. Adjust them only with full knowledge of the ethics of doing so. Realize that no matter how bad things are, ultimately, you are not working for a boss, supervisor, owner, customer, or anyone else. You are only working for yourself. Your reward is primarily your paycheck, not a title, a perk, or a bonus.
These life lessons helped me understand and build my integrity. And my integrity, in turn, attracted people to me to be friends and support me.
Further, when you realize you are working to provide for yourself and others whom you have chosen or will choose, you understand what you're willing to endure to get it. Knowing what you're ready to give up to get something you want or not lose something you already have is vital to self-awareness.
What extra do you have inside to improve your marketability and willingness to change the status quo? It sets your priorities – who you're willing to put up with, who to assist, what working environment to work in, or even whether you're willing to work or sacrifice. It can drive us economically, professionally, academically, in service to others, and in service to ourselves.
It's hard to do this effectively, honestly, successfully, and objectively alone. That's where friends, partners, and mentors come in. An honest and trusted friend can help you step back and see the big picture. Good friends help you be honest with yourself and accountable. They see things you don't and are there to console your failures and mistakes and celebrate your successes.
Look for these qualities in your friends and, just as important, among your coworkers and colleagues. They will understand your work and your work environment. Develop both work friends and mentors. Trust your instincts about who you can trust, talk to, and to whom you can speak candidly. If possible, look for these in a similar company or enterprise to avoid compromising yourself in your immediate work environment.
Taking breaks with groups of coworkers, having lunch with them, or decompressing somewhere after work with them can promote friendships in and out of work. Look for people with common interests, hobbies, or experiences – anything that helps break the ice and drops barriers. Finding someone with shared values and backgrounds can be particularly valuable. Mainly, be on the lookout and aware of what's happening around you. Your environment and coworkers may be toxic and untrustworthy. But, if anything, they can be a real live soap opera for your amusement and later fodder for your tell-all book!
When I first entered the work environment, I worked with a small consulting firm for five years. Early on, I found a mentor from whom I learned so much. Then, I made two true friendships there, and we subsequently broke away from the company and formed our own. That lasted five years. Then, as I was considering plans to move to another state and explore my options, I found myself in a long-term domestic partner relationship. I accepted a job in the public sector in an agency being temporarily run by a former fraternity brother and friend. He helped me secure the job.
Unbeknownst to me, a political regime change was underway with the upper management. An outsider soon took control, swept away a lot of former senior executives, took a liking to me, and kept promoting me to senior positions every year or two. My life plans to move out of state changed.
The politics in the agency I worked for were volatile, and eventually, the executive director lost his job. The new director and board were challenging to work with, and it was even more difficult to grow personally and professionally. Still, I stayed, tied my career to the latest management team, and looked around for another outlet for my talents. My local and statewide professional association was seeking some volunteer talent. I renewed old friendships and made new ones. Before long, I led the local professionals and then the statewide chapter of the national professionals.
By then, many coworkers saw the opportunities in our professional association. They joined me in the volunteer work. They identified with my honesty and professionalism, helped me succeed, and set their path inside the professional association. It broadened our exposure within the profession and deepened our respective sets of contacts around the state and the country.
During this part of my career, I got to know another coworker, who initially worked for me, got promoted, and I eventually worked for him. He became the person I most respected and trusted in my professional and personal life. He moved across the country, held a couple of new jobs out West, and finally settled in semi-retirement in a remote part of Montana near Canada. We remain in constant contact. More on him later.
Now that I'm retired, I follow several former workers on social media but am close friends with only one. I would quickly feel solidarity with several others if we rekindled our contact and friendship. However, retirement has proven to be a different set of new friendships, much to my surprise or plans.
Have you kept in contact with coworkers over the years? How has it proven beneficial beyond just reminiscing and historical comparisons? Some of these coworkers are retiring now, and I'm highly impressed with their retirement paths. Join me next week when this series concludes with the retirement years with "On the Back of an Elephant."
This story was originally published on April 14, 2022.
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