#465 When a work friend becomes an outside-of-work friend

Neil Pasricha

The nine to five brought you together.

Cracking jokes by the copier, swapping stories on the line, laughing in the lunchroom, you found a friend between policies, procedures, and paperwork. When you got together you started noticing you were just you, just hanging out, just laughing about your day.

Then one day your friendship zoomed to a new level. Maybe you grabbed a beer one night, got a surprise birthday invite, or became new texting pals.

Yes, you turned a work friend into an outside-of-work friend, baby. It wasn’t easy but you took the chance, you made the leap, and now you’re rocking with someone new.

AWESOME!

The Book of Awesome hits Australia and New Zealand on August 1st featuring a new pink cover!

— Email message —

“A week ago, I was about to take THE road test to obtain my driver’s license; stress level = MAXIMUM! Ten minutes before leaving for the exam center, I remembered my Book Of Awesome was supposed to arrive. I checked my mailbox, and here it was! I spent my last minutes reading a few awesome things, and when I left for the exam, I wasn’t stressed out anymore, I was just thinking of how AWESOME our world is, with or without any drivers license. And you know what? I GOT IT! AWESOME!” – Caroline from Paris, France

Photo from: here

51 thoughts to “#465 When a work friend becomes an outside-of-work friend”

  1. I can’t really agree with this quite yet ’cause I don’t work, but its probably awesome because I know how awesome it is when your in-school friends become your outside of school friends! So I’m assuming it’s the same deal, right? Either way, AWESOME! (:

    1. I totally agree! There are some people I spend hours studying with but never see them outside an academic setting!

      This guy and I started out as study partners because we had 3 classes together. We didn’t start hanging out until after finals, and now we are dating… AWESOME!

  2. Selling stuff in Australia – AWESOME!!!
    Yet another country for the book to become a best seller… Love your work

  4. Aww, I kinda liked the black cover, but I’m still freakin’ excited bout The Book Of Awesome FINALLY making it to Australia! WOOO!!

    1. I agree, I liked the black cover too!! I thought he had given me the wrong book when I picked it up! LOL But I’m still gald I got it, because it’s AWESOME!! woot woot

  5. I live in New Zealand and had the book shipped here a couple months ago from the states. I work at a school and have been sharing the awesomeness with the kids on a daily basis :) Glad my fellow kiwis will soon be able to share in the joy as well when the book arrives here!

  6. Or when you start working with an already-friend. You get to giggle among yourselves and laugh together in the break room about funny things that happened in the past or even from the weekend.

    Congrats on getting your license, Caroline! :)

  7. Making new friends is always awesome!! Regardless of where they’re from.

    I, too, am an Australian who also kinda liked the black cover, but pink is also AWESOME! I’m very excited for the release and the explosion of excitement over the book in Oceania. I expect to see it in headlines and look forward to sharing it with friends and family in hard copy!

    And congrats on the license, Caroline. :)

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  9. Yes, they are so awesome I wish I had one now. I don’t have a work friend that has become an outside of work friend at this job. The people are too….well….snooty and my time is kinda limited these days. My first job at the gas station, all of my work friends were my friends outside of work. Even some of the customers! I’m still friends with all of them, but the ones here aren’t really the kind of people I see myself hanging out with. There’s only a few here that are my age and all they want to do is go to clubs and get drunk. I’m at the maturity level of the older people I work with, but they don’t really want to do anything.
    I have hung out with my boss a few times outside of work. She is awesome. We’ve gone to a couple plays, dinner, an opening, and we hang out at Relay. She’s 55 and I’m 24 and she’s the only one at work that I feel like I can connect with.

    1. ok, so there was this one temp that was working here. She started about a month after me and we got along very well. Then out of the blue she quit showing up. I don’t know what happened exactly. Someone said she had a family emergency, someone else said she found another job…I don’t know…but I miss her. She was actually my age, in almost the same situation as me (married with kids) and we could talk forever and laugh over anything.

      1. Bekah, I can relate! When I was your age I had a job where I didn’t fit in socially with anyone else at work. I was also living alone at the time, and my boyfriend lived in a different city. Thank goodness for Melrose Place – that show got me through a dark, lonely winter. LOL.

  10. What a perfect day to read this post. Today is my last day at my current job and even though I’m really excited to be starting my new job, I’m going to miss my work friends so much. Just last night as we grabbed a beer for some going-away celebrations/goodbyes I was thinking of how close we’ve become in our time together and I’m really hoping that we continue our outside of work friendship :)

    Thanks Neil!

  11. Ooooh, I like that book cover! Pink’s my fave, though.

    I start my new (real!) job exactly one month from today. I’m excited to convert some work friends into some outside-of-work friends.

    Congratulations on the driver’s license, Caroline! That’s one of the best feelings ever.

    1. Good luck at your new job, Laura!
      But until then, enjoy your last summer of freedom.

      1. Thank you! I am DEFINITELY enjoying this summer, but — good news! I’ll be teaching, so summers of freedom are a total career perk ;D

        2. What will you be teaching???
          I was going to school to be a high school Biology and Anatomy teacher….but those plans fell through.

          Good Luck!!

          1. 3rd grade :D

            Btw … it’s never too late! It may have fallen through for the time being, but if you really want to do it, maybe someday you will!

  13. I love this one! My best friend started out as a work friend! We first met 16 years ago at work, and slowly became friends. Our friendship got a push when we took a business trip together and discovered how well we got along.

    The key to making work friends into “real” friends is making a commitment to get together regularly once you no longer work together. My friend and I used biweekly lunch dates at first.

  14. This is soooo perfect!
    I made a special point to check today’s Awesome Thing cuz it’s my birthday! :) And this post is perfect because about 90% of my friends started out as work friends, including my 2 BEST friends :) :)

  15. This is absolutely awesome! My best friend and I met at our part-time job (while we were working full-time gigs) about 20 years ago.

    We’ve changed jobs, residence locations and relationships, but our friendship just grows stronger.

    We still have the uncontrollable giggles when we think back to some of the (still secret) silly stuff we took part in as 20-something year-olds. Oh, if we were to write a book ….

    Thank you so much for putting in words, some of the most awesome things for us to celebrate together!

  16. I really LOVE this :)

    I feel so lucky to work at a place where we all get along really well. I’ve spent time with my work friends through good and bad, BB Q’s and breakups.
    We are like a little family, and I love having them as out of work friends.

    Just last week we all went midnight bowling together.We stayed out till 4 am. Good Times!

    Love the Australia cover! I wish I lived in Australia:)

  17. Just found your blog, getting your book, thanks for reminding us about the stuff that matters!

  19. All of my awesome friends were once work buddies. I have found at least (the close ones) bff that way. My very fave person (besides family) in the world was once a work buddy. I think it helps when your place of work is not all that awesome, kind of like being in a war together ;).

  21. Myers-Briggs has me as an INTJ, so I’m not one for lots of friends but I have a work friend whom I met over 20 years ago and she is like my kindred spirit although I don’t think she is an INTJ. I treasure her like a jewel.

  22. Yay we have a release date! And it is a Sunday :s is that right?? must be an American thing… Interesting new cover as well.

    Loving this post too, by chance at uni orientation, me and a mate teamed up after finding that our interests are very similar and now share stuff and now even have the same backpack :3
    Out of the thousands of people, I was able to find someone to relate too.

  23. I would love for this to happen, but I’m always so iffy about the idea! Guess I just need to make the leap. It’s always nice to have someone to *ahem* … commiserate with!

  24. This is so true. I just recently got a new work friend. She started working at my job a few months back but we just started hanging out and spending time together outside of work. It is awesome to have someone who understands exactly where you are coming from when you need to complain about a bad day at work!

  25. I moved to my current town after college because my boyfriend, who I love very much, lived there, and was lonely and miserable for months. I hated being in a new place with new people who I knew were judging me. When the proverbial shit started hitting the fan at work, I was at first miserable, but it made me bond with Kevin. A year later, we hang out every night and I haven’t been happier in a long time. We bitch about work pretty often, but we have so much in common and have amazing times just hanging around. It’s worth working in that place, as crazy as it makes me, just to have met him and have gained his friendship.

  26. Yay! New Zealand!
    I have been waiting for the book to be released over here I love the list of awesome things! Thanks so much! : )

  27. I LOVE your blog!!
    It’s like Thanksgiving everyday.
    Plus, totally agree with this one post especially. love it. i even had a roommate who was also a coworker. WIN

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  35. Most of my friends came from work or school! Where else do you meet people? Duh they are the best

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