During my time in high-school and college, I have had three jobs. I worked for my grandfather’s contracting company, I worked for Vacation Bible School at my grandparent’s church, and I have worked in the Brock Center during my four years at Randolph-Macon. In each of these jobs, I found that the friends I made became like a family and because of this I would look forward to coming to work. The few times I was in conflict with co-workers, it was usually just that we were tired of seeing each other too much and not that one of us was promoted, one of us was a kiss-up or backstabber. The article “The Effects of Social Support on Work-Family Enhancement and Work-Family Conflict in the Public Sector” by Lori L. Wadsworth and Bradley P. Owens discusses the effect of workplace friends on work environment and the possible conflicts that could happen. In these jobs, the friends I made became like a family and it helped on days where I did not want to work.
However, we had some rough spots because we saw each other almost every day. When I worked for my grandfather’s company, I became friends with some of the people I worked with on job sites, but it did get annoying after a while because seeing them every day and working with them from 8am-5pm created some conflict. At one point we did not talk to each other unless they had to give me instructions. But once I switched job sites, when we saw each other at the office we started to talk again because we had not seen each other for a few days. According to the article “Previous research has shown that work-family conflict is related to decreased productivity, absenteeism and turnover”[1]. Because I saw the people I worked with every day, it was harder for us to get things done and we were not as productive as we could be. As a result, some of us were given different job sites to work. By us working at different job sites, we had more to talk about when we saw each other before and after work because we did not see each other that often.
When I worked for Vacation Bible School, we had fewer conflicts because we only worked with each other for a week and did not see each other much other than that one week. Because of this, my friends from that job and I would offer each other support if we were having problems. According to the article “Social support in the workplace can come from many sources: the most commonly explored sources are supervisors and coworkers.”[2] When I worked at Vacation Bible School, my two sources of social support were my coworkers/friends I knew from when we were in Vacation Bible School together and my boss who I knew when I was a kid. If I ever had a problem I could always go to them for advice or just to talk when we had free time and I always felt better afterward. If they had a problem or needed to talk, then I would help them. I remember one time, I felt ignored and I told that to my friend that was doing the same job as me and he just sat and listened to me talk and I felt better. He told me that if I ever needed to talk that he would make time to talk to me whether it be a few minutes or an hour. Even though we only worked together for a week, it felt like we had worked longer because we had known each other for years. Because of this, we got along with each other and I am still friends with them today and I hope to be friends with them years from now. Since we only worked for one week, we did not really run into conflict because working only one week did not create any conflicts for us.
My final job that I have held since my freshman year at R-MC is working in the Brock Center. Each year I have worked in the Brock, I have not many conflicts with coworkers or my boss and even if I did, we resolved the conflict easily. According to the article “support from a supervisor or co-workers may decrease an individual’s negative feelings about a job and that increased coworker support is associated with decreased depression.”[3] Because I have worked in the Brock Center for almost four years now, I find this to be very true. Working at the Brock, I have not faced any of the typical conflicts of the workplace like kiss-ups or being promoted because we do not get promoted at the Brock and no one has any reason to kiss-up to our boss since we do not get promoted or a raise in our salary. Because of this we are encouraged to be friends with each other and talk to each other during freetime if no one needs our help with something. If I am feeling sad about something then my boss or a friend at work can usually do or say something to make me laugh and feel better. Because of this, I look forward to each day of work there because I know that I will leave smiling and feel happy. When I graduate, I am going to miss working here.
As you can see, the three jobs I have had have created new families in my jobs and life. I have loved these jobs and I wish that I could do them for the rest of my life and will probably still be friends with them years from now. Work-families are great to be a part of because you can always go to them and talk or get advice from them. Conflict may occur but if you learn from it, then you will probably continue to be friends with them for the rest of your life and can look back at your time at the job and remember your time working fondly.