职场友谊为何重要？

Indeed, most of us will be able to think of an instance where a boss has been difficult or a performance review has gone badly and a workplace friend has offered support. Similarly, friends can act as allies and partners who look out for each other and advance each other’s interests.

实际上，我们大多数人都可以想到这样的例子：当老板很难打交道或者业绩评估不顺时，一位职场朋友提供了支持。同样，朋友可以扮演盟友和合作伙伴的角色，他们互相关心，促进彼此的利益。

Office friendships have always been important to Suzanne Azzopardi, an executive producer of digital global strategy at FremantleMedia. “When you start at a company, you find people who are similar to you and understand you,” she says. “Work is often the place where you spend more time than any other and you need people you can share confidences with or lean on.”

对FremantleMedia数字全球战略部门的执行制作人苏珊娜•阿佐帕尔迪(Suzanne Azzopardi)来说，办公室友谊总是很重要。她说：“当你刚进一家公司的时候，你会发现和你志趣相投、理解你的人。办公室往往是你呆的时间最久的地方，你需要有人可以分享秘密或依靠。”

Work friendships can also be very intense, Ms Azzopardi adds, especially when you are young — you may end up sharing accommodation or even your lives with colleagues. Years later she is still in touch with some of them.

阿佐帕尔迪补充说，职场友谊也可能非常深厚，尤其是在你年轻的时候——你可能会与同事一起住，或者在生活中有来有往。多年以后，她仍然与其中一些人保持着联系。

Sarah Godwin, co-founder of the legal recruitment firm, Law Absolute, started a business with two work friends. “The three of us who founded the company met while working together in the 90s,” she explains. “Over the years, one of the women had been my boss and then, later I’d been hers.”

法律业招聘公司Law Absolute的联合创始人萨拉•戈德温(Sarah Godwin)与两位职场朋友创办了一家企业。她解释说：“我们三人是在上世纪90年代一起工作时相识的。多年来，其中一位女士曾经是我的老板，后来我是她的老板。”

Starting a company with good friends, she says, has been a real plus. “There’s a really nice cohesive culture and a lot of trust. That filtersdown through the business.”

她说，与好友一起创办公司真的很棒。“公司会有非常好的文化，有凝聚力，彼此非常信任。这渗透到整个企业当中。”

职场友谊潜在的缺点

While some friendships endure and even enhance your career, others are more situational and, when one of you leaves, it is quickly apparent you had only work in common.

虽然有些友谊可以长久不衰，甚至有助于你的职业发展，但也有些友谊会随着形势变化，当你们当中的一人离开时，很快你就发现，你们显然只是共事过。

“It’s a bit like when a normal friend moves to a different part of the country,” says John Lees, author of How to Get a Job You Love. “If it’sgenuine, the friendship will endure when they go.”

“这有点像一个普通朋友搬到国内不同的地方，”《如何获得你喜爱的工作》(How to Get a Job You Love)的作者约翰•利斯(John Lees)说，“如果是真正的友谊，即使分开了友情还在。”

Current work friendships have potential drawbacks too. “You need clarity around boundaries,” says Mr Lees. “You might, for example, need to berecused from disciplining a friend.” However, he adds you can sometimes be blunter with a friend than you can be with someone who is merely a colleague.

当前的职场友谊也有潜在的缺点。“你需要清楚界限在哪里，”利斯说，“例如，你可能需要回避惩戒训斥朋友。”然而，他补充说，与普通同事相比，你有时可能会对朋友直言相告。

One of the biggest pitfalls that can happen with colleagues whose company you enjoy is the question of what happens when a close friend gets promoted ahead of you. As the essayist Gore Vidal apparently put it: “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”

与你志同道合的同事可能出现的最大隐患之一，是在你的密友先于你升职时会发生什么。正如散文家戈尔•维达尔(Gore Vidal)所说的那样：“每当有朋友获得成功时，我身上的某种东西就会消失一些。”

职场友谊总体利大于弊

Thalia Wheatley, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, who has done research on work friendships, says that studies suggest your brain has a way of coping when this happens. “The way you ‘survive’ is you tell yourself that you don’t do exactly the same job as they do,” she explains. “So you might say, ‘they’re in marketing, but if you look at my role, it’s really sales.”

新罕布什尔州汉诺威市达特茅斯学院(Dartmouth College)的心理学和脑科学副教授塔利亚•惠特利(Thalia Wheatley)对职场友谊进行了研究。他说，研究表明，发生这种情况时，你的大脑有一种应对方式。“你‘挺过来’的方式是告诉自己，你做的工作和他们不完全一样，”她解释说，“所以你可能会说，‘他们在搞营销，但如果你看我的职务，我干的其实是销售。’”

A defence mechanism, sure. But one that for many will have an uncomfortable smack of recognition.

这当然是一种防御机制。但是对于很多人来说，承认这一点会有点令人不快。

Even so, studies suggest that the net overall result of work friends is positive and without them the office is a very lonely place. “When you talk to people at the end of their working lives,” says Mr Lees, “the thing they’ll often remember is not what they achieved or accomplished, but the friends they made.”

即使如此，有研究表明，职场朋友总体来说是利大于弊的，如果没有他们，办公室就是一个非常孤独的地方。“当你与即将走完职场生涯的人交谈的时候，”利斯说，“你会发现，他们记住的往往不是曾经取得的成绩或成就，而是交过的朋友。”