Chapter 10: Details

Workplace Relationships

Overview

Americans like to get to know the people they work with, by which they mean establishing something more than a purely professional relation- ship. They like to think of the people they work with as friends , in other words, and not just colleagues or business associates . This means they tend to be more open and familiar with coworkers, sharing personal feelings and talking freely about their private or family life. Indeed, many Americans will openly discuss matters with coworkers that people in other cultures only discuss with family members and their closest friends. Americans would find it odd if they didn t know anything about a coworker s private life after a relatively short acquaintance. This does not mean, incidentally, that it s acceptable to be talking about personal or private matters when you re supposed to be working, but American coworkers will expect you to share information about your personal life with them at other times.

Among other things, this notion that you should be friendly with the people at work explains the importance of small talk in the American workplace. When two Americans meet or when they talk with each other on the phone, they usually begin with a brief exchange of personal information. One might ask the other what he or she did over the weekend , ask how a spouse or child is doing, comment on the weather, or talk briefly about a common interest such as a sports team or a new movie. There is a deliberate effort, in other words, to begin conversations with something other than business, something other than the work- related topic that is the purpose of the phone call or appointment. Needless to say, people who immediately begin their conversations with business are usually seen by Americans as unfriendly.

The content of small talk should not be anything too serious or too complicated or anything that takes very much time; that s what makes it small. In fact, the speakers are not really talking about anything, not listening that closely to each other; it s just a ritual exchange, the real content of which is the message that since we re friends, we can t start talking about business immediately.

American small talk should not be confused with the custom in many Latin American, African, and Middle Eastern societies of avoiding business altogether in the first meeting with a prospective client or supplier and focusing instead on establishing trust and personal rapport. American small talk is very brief, just a minute or two, and is always followed by getting down to business.

Perhaps because they are such a mobile people, Americans are also more likely to become friends with their coworkers than are people from many other parts of the world. In much of Europe, for example, one s friends are more likely to be lifelong acquaintances met at an early age, and it is relatively rare to socialize with people from work or to work with people from one s social circle. In contrast, the people Americans spend their time with after work and on weekends are very often some of the same people they see every day on the job; many Americans even date and eventually marry people they meet at work.

This blurring of the distinction between coworkers and friends in the United States makes the American workplace seem much more social than that in many other countries , and likewise means that the world of work often looms much larger in personal relationships and social settings. People often talk about personal problems on the job, although they re not supposed to do so on company time (see Personal and Professional below), and about work-related problems or personalities when they are away from the job.

Because the workplace dynamic is inevitably more personalized in the United States, cliques or associations of friends tend to form. People look out for each other, take sides, defend their friends, and sometimes even let personal feelings interfere with their professional judgments , although most people try very hard not to do this.

It is ironic that in a society where people work with friends and socialize with coworkers, it is considered the height of unprofessionalism to let personal feelings interfere in any way with one s conduct on the job. It is okay to have friends among one s coworkers, but it is not okay to treat those friends differently from anyone else. Americans are quite sensitive about this and very alert to the slightest sign that a personal relationship may be influencing a person s judgments or decisions. Indeed, they often go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of impartiality in their professional interactions. If the friend beset by domestic trouble is a member of a project team you re heading up, Stephen Viscusi writes ,

and has been unable to carry his share of the load, and therefore is jeopardizing the project, you have no choice but to replace him. If he s a professional, he ll understand and not hold it against you. . . . When business and friendship conflict on the job, business trumps friendship every time. (2001, 119, 120)

This is especially true in the case of manager-subordinate friendships, which, for this very reason, are relatively rare in the workplace.

Personal and Professional

Apart from obvious exceptions such as emergencies, you should never let personal and/or family matters interfere with or otherwise affect your performance at work. A personal or family problem, in other words, is almost never an acceptable explanation or excuse for something you have done or not done at the office, such as missing an important meeting or not finishing a report on time.

Americans are not unfeeling, of course; if you miss a meeting because your daughter s daycare arrangement fell through or because the neighbor who drives your mother to her weekly dialysis is feeling under the weather ” if things happen that are clearly beyond your control, everyone will understand. At the same time, however, you will be expected to sort out these issues so that they don t continue to spill over into your work life ” finding a backup driver for your mother, for example, or making more reliable arrangements for daycare.

In the same way, it s generally not acceptable to spend work time conducting personal or family business, such as making plans for a weekend trip, consoling your distraught brother on the breakup of his latest romance, or scheduling a babysitter for Friday night. You can do these things over lunch if you like ” lunch time is usually considered personal time ” or on a break, but not when you should be working. At the same time, employers know that some personal business, such as talking on the phone to your mother s doctor or to your child s teacher, can t always be scheduled around work. As much as possible, however, you will be expected to deal with personal matters on your own time, as Americans say, not on company time. Whenever dealing with personal or family issues takes you away from your workplace, the time ou are gone will probably be charged against your vacation or sick leave (or you will be expected to make that time up by coming in early or working late).

The other side of the personal/professional separation is that when work is over, it s over. Employers who expect workers not to use company time for personal matters can t very well expect you to give up personal time for company matters. If your boss wants you to stay late to participate in a conference call or meet with a client, you may choose to do so as a favor (or as a good career move), but you are under no obligation to do so.