My big one is that they need to stop asking why I applied for their company. The real answer is I want a new job, and I blasted out a hundred applications. I didn’t choose your company specifically.
My big one is that they need to stop asking why I applied for their company. The real answer is I want a new job, and I blasted out a hundred applications. I didn’t choose your company specifically.
Because working with people you don’t like is not fun?
I work in a slaughterhouse in the middle of nowhere of a deep red state. I’m surrounded by people I can’t stand and have to listen to hateful rhetoric in the locker room every day. I don’t care cause I get paid to keep coming in and spend most of my time listening to music/podcasts.
That sounds fucking shit, my sympathies.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to provide THE answer to your question, just a possible answer (that’s not necessarily applicable in all contexts). But also, I suspect my answer might still be applicable in your context from the perspective of your boss/hirer.
It’s not supposed to be fun. No one is at work to have fun. People are at work because they die if they do not work. It’s not really possible to have fun with a gun to your head unless you’re mentally incompetent or a psychopath.
It must be the worst living this way. I’m 47 and have never had a job where I haven’t at least had a little fun. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. I’m genuinely sorry you have to live that way.
Having a good bunch of coworkers whom you become friends with makes the work a lot more enjoyable.
It can, sure, but that isn’t the point of work or where most people fulfill their social needs. That is called finding community in suffering. During bank robberies and other hostage situations the victims also find ways to trauma bond and take their mind off of their current suffering, to the point where trauma bonded people are far more likely to be lifelong friends and partners than just random strangers.
In an ideal world where people magically get to do what they want to do and not worry about getting paid, your view point makes more sense. We don’t live in that world though, and selecting applicants based on how much they’re willing to fake being your friend just results in less competency and more work for everyone.
I get it. It sucks being forced to work to fulfill your basic needs.
But jeez, your perspective sucks. I bet you’re a lot of fun to work with. 🙄
You know, even without capitalism, we’d all have to work to get something in return somehow. We all have different needs.
OK, but consider this: I do have fun at work. And most of my friends do to, at least some of the time. I know that this is a privileged position to be in.
I’m sorry that you don’t. And I agree that lots of people don’t, and that that sucks. But that’s not a universal truth.
And for the hirer, there’s a choice between working with someone who might see work as at least tolerable and maybe even an enjoyable and fiendly place to be, or working with someone who hates every minute of being there. If you were in their shoes, which would you pick?
I’d pick the person that is most competent for the job, personally, as that means less work for others on their team, and less work overall that needs to be done in order for a day to be over.
I’m not at work to make friends, normal humans have a life outside of work for that. ‘Work friends’ are not real friends, they’re hardly real people. They are entities you have to interact with in order to continue living.
I doubt that I’m the only person here who has good friendships that started as co-workers…
Yeah pretty sure you can go back as far as you want in human history and people will tend to be friends with the people they work with. Gathering partners, building partners, scouting partners, etc. Befriending others to complete mutually beneficial tasks is a big part of the special sauce that defines our species. This idea that we shouldn’t befriend those we work with is absolutely wild to me. Like, you don’t need to be best friends, but you should get along and enjoy each other’s company.
I get along and enjoy the people that don’t make my job harder. Which is why I’ve been a lot happier at work lately cause I started working alone.
You are not.
Working with a great team and boss can make it seem a whole lot less like work. Still friends with a team that formed 30 years ago. Two marriages came out of it as well. We all worked together for about 10 years before people and the company went other ways but we all remember it as one of our best work environments we were ever part of, and we still get together regularly.