By Donna Shea
I know that our blog posts are usually about how to socially support children and teens. There have been circumstances recently at my center that prompt me to write a blog about adult friendships, especially those that form at work or through a working relationship. The combination of a personal friendship and a working relationship adds a degree of complexity that doesn’t exist in friendships outside of work. The care and feeding of this type of friendship is very different, and having recently been through one, can be ripe for accidental or purposeful betrayals.
I experienced the heart-crushing loss of a long-time friend and colleague over an issue that happened at work over the summer. The tears of anger and sadness came, and kept coming for most of the summer. Anger from the realization of the impact on the summer work schedule, and a deep painful sadness over the clear message that we were no longer friends and our families were no longer connected in the way they had been for many years. I searched my soul for what I did wrong or might have done differently. I thought maybe that with time, we might re-connect. With time, came acceptance and closure that it was what it was.
And then another wrenching blow came recently when I began to hear from other staff members things that were discussed or talked about behind my back, apparently for some time before all this happened. I believe I can solve any problem, if I know what it is. I have no patience or tolerance for water cooler gossip and I have told my staff this. I have begun to call out water cooler talk if I hear it at the office. It is human nature for us to talk about other people and I know that we are all guilty of it at one time or another. I have made it a mission to catch and stop myself when it happens and to bring awareness to my staff when it occurs at work. If a person isn’t present, that person is not to be discussed.
Problems at work arise. People are not compatible or disagree on how things should be handled. Some work harder than others. A person may not know that there is something that needs to be worked on or changed. Talking about it behind that person’s back will never see any changes or improvements discussed or implemented. Staff meetings should and will become part of our business at the center now as we have grown enough to reach the point where there are enough people and personalities that invite this type of talking about each other. I won’t have it in a place who’s business it is to promote kindness, good manners and conflict resolution.
Nadine and I are often asked how we manage to maintain such a close friendship and be managing partners of a company while also running centers that could be considered competitive with each other if we allowed that type of thinking. It takes the same type of working at it as does a marriage. We don’t always agree. We compromise or take turns having our way. We have hurt each other’s feelings. We apologize or take time to explore a misunderstanding. We don’t compete. We believe there is an abundance of kids that need help and support each other wholeheartedly. We give credit where credit is due for each other’s work and projects.
Most importantly, (and I thank Nadine for teaching me this phrase), we know how to say, “We need to have an uncomfortable conversation,” or one of us might also say to the other, “We should talk about this to prevent (as we like to call it) potential icky-ness,” or sometimes we simply say, “Eeeeeek!” in a certain tone and the other knows to stop and listen. All of our problems are laid out, discussed and solved at our conference table and not hidden behind or covered up with mean talk at the water cooler. Nadine and I don’t talk behind each other’s back, we have each other’s back.
