Your Coworkers Are Not Your Friends

[@s-wo8781]

Nobody really wants to be friends with me at work anyway. I've had a couple say they wanted to hang out but when it came time to there's always some excuse and then there are those that act nice but I find out that everyone went out to celebrate a birthday, but I was the only one that wasn't invited. I heard someone said they wanted to do something for my birthday but changed their minds. People who joke with me in the same type of humor but when I do it back they want to tell the supervisors. I just want to not to talk to anyone anymore.

[@wavesoflife-101]

My oh My, this hits so different right now. I'm currently go through this friend/work situation as we speak. And I'm just now realizing how stupid I am for not reading between the lines. I confided and overshared too much and got my feelings hurt. 🤦‍♀️

[@susansamuel6704]

You brought up a really valid topic that we can apply to our lives. Not knowing this one thing you explained, can mess everything up and make it overwhelming to undo it and deal with the consequences. Thank u Ahsante!

[@chippomchenga8215]

Wow Ahsante! This was so timely for me! Thanks. Sending love from 🇲🇼 Malawi 👍🤌

[@shockhouser3171]

You can chose your friends not families

[@therob8346]

Great advice in this video! I think maybe this could apply more so to more middle management/office jobs that have a competitive nature to them rather than other jobs. Still good advice for people in those jobs.

[@AhsanteB]

Thank you! Yup, that's why I made sure to preface it with my office background. Glad you appreciate!

[@wamiogunbi]

Great content! I am a grad student, but there are still some helpful tips in here that applies even for me.

[@AhsanteB]

Glad it's helpful!

[@osalumhenseakhabue4729]

You just talked about what I needed! Thank you

[@AhsanteB]

Glad it was helpful!

[@amoskittengo]

Thanks for the content. Very wonderful

[@AhsanteB]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@camillenavarre4664]

I love the concept of your chanel !

[@DeidreDevelops]

What if the culture at your workplace is to share a little bit? In fact, it's actually encouraged for me. I've been kinda mirroring the culture of my workplace which is to share our personal lives a bit, but not in detail. It's more than I ever have at previous workplaces though. Sometimes I wonder if I've overshared. How do you gauge that?

[@AhsanteB]

I think that's the balance! I think mirroring the workplace culture is smart, especially if you're new. Like you said, it's about what details you choose to share. For example, when asked "How was your weekend?" I try to give an actual answer, but the level of detail depends on how much I trust the person (will they somehow use this against me?), and how much they actually seem to care about how I'm doing. If it feels like someone is asking as a formality, or it's clear from their other actions that they don't actually care about employee wellbeing, then I give a brief answer. And then since I always have the question "can they trust me to get the work done" in my mind for work relationships, I ask myself if those details could be interpreted as not being committed to the job or not being trustworthy. For example, I've always had this channel as a side hustle, and although my coworkers all know about it, sometimes I'm not as explicit about how hard I'm working on this outside of my day job. If I spent all weekend working on videos (as I often did) then I might be a bit more vague, or talk about the one non-video related thing I did that weekend. Mentioning spending time with family or friends is also something I always felt comfortable sharing (pretty hard to misinterpret that).

[@DeidreDevelops]

@@AhsanteB Thank you so much for your reply!! It's very helpful especially since I'm also navigating if I want to share more about my content creation. 😊

[@rukomia]

Great Script. Very Intuitive!!

[@AhsanteB]

Thanks!

[@mimirobin]

"at least 40 hour week" had me gasp, a fragile European 😂 but tbh I've read too much of Marx to be comfortable with (the idea of) having a fixed "professional personality" that is set in certain boundaries and much less spontaneous or negotiable as all the other behaviours we adapt in different situations as you described,, it's one central aspect of alienation in its literal sense. although you do perfectly argue why for many people it's necessary to make these distinctions. also: gossiping and venting are dangerous yes, but imo I should never be hard no nos. again, this might be the European speaking here but the political processes of worker's organising and unionsing literally depend on employees finding trust beyond their role as employees, building and utilizing safe spaces to problematise their working conditions and problematising can be venting/ranting turned productive :)

[@AhsanteB]

Hahaha, yeah we work ourselves pretty hard in the US 😅 Yeah, as I mentioned, I think folks should feel free to have boundaries as they see fit - so maybe those boundaries are broad and flexible for some, whereas I have a few things I'm a hard "no" about. I would also categorize gossiping and organizing as different things - sharing information about the workplace is totally necessary, and organizing should focus on structural issues, whereas gossiping to me is more about being personally judgemental of other individuals - it's more casual and frivolous. Also different from filing a formal complaint. I was part of a union in one of my earlier jobs, but it's still a conditional work-based relationship (if you leave the company, you're no longer in the union). I would also categorize my union job as being part of a low-personal-trust environment, but we could all trust each other to get our common work done and connect on that.

[@jo.onthego]

Lol me watching this at the beginning of the work day 😂

[@AhsanteB]

Hahaha 👀

[@exas4791]

So be nice but don't ever trust any colleague ?

[@AhsanteB]

Nope - I said in the video that there has to be a trust that you can get the job done in the workplace. There's nuance, which is why this video isn't once sentence long :)

[@darrylharris756]

💎