I'm having a hard time processing an episode of House that we just watched. As a bit of a side story in the episode, one of House's subordinates (Foreman) ends up writing and submitting a paper to a journal that another one (Cameron) has already written about. Cameron's wrote her paper first, but House ends up signing off on Foreman's and he gets published. Cameron is obviously pissed off about it. At the end of the episode, Cameron decides that they both had the right to write about that case as they both worked on it, and she goes and apologises for being so hostile towards Foreman. Foreman says that he doesn't need to apologise, and that in a few years, they probably won't even be working together. They might say hello or hug each other if they see each other at a conference, but as far as he's concerned, they're colleagues and not friends.
I'm sure you've all heard way too much about my movie already (which seems to have gone down OK, I didn't get any angry Facebook messages), but it's pretty clear that hearing about my colleague leaving hit me pretty hard. When Grad Daniel messaged me saying that the colleague was packing up for the last time, I was feeling pretty teary. It's probably a good thing that I was on the other side of the planet. I don't think that's how you're meant to react when a colleague leaves, I feel like spending hours editing a movie, and feeling teary is something that you do when friends leave your life.
Given the high turnover in retail and hospitality, it never really affected me when people quit Woolworths or the casino. There were the lifers, who had been there for years, and some of whom are still there, and the part timers, like myself, who were only there as a stepping stone for another job later in life. But this is my first real big job, and during my first rotation in the graduate program, one of my co-workers was made redundant. I'd only been in the team for a couple of months at that point, and I barely knew him, but I still found it tough to handle. He was the primary expert for one of our systems, and so it felt like anyone's head could be on the chopping block at any time (I thought I was the exception at the time, as I was on the graduate program, but I found out from another grad that the program had fired one of the grads, though we never found out why). I later found out that he was let go because he was a contractor (someone who is brought in on a temporary contract to do some work related to their specific skill set), and the work they had brought him in for had finished.
We've had a few more people come and go. I ended up leaving that team to move on to my next rotation in the graduate program, and again when I moved on to my third and last rotation. There are always comments that you'll keep in touch, but with one exception, that hasn't really happened. Perhaps that's what LinkedIn was meant to be for?
Earlier this year, my sub-team (a smaller portion of my overall team, which is assigned to working on particular assets within my team) drew the short straw, and had to move to a different floor from the rest of our team because we were expanding too much in order to try and get our major project track, and there wasn't enough space on our floor for everyone. I was pretty sad about it, because it meant that I wouldn't be on the same floor as the Daniels. Intern Daniel and I have a morning ritual where we go to the kitchen, fill our bottles with water (it's our equivalent of going to get a coffee), and discuss life, the universe and everything. Now that we're on different floors, I can't see when he gets in, and it's a bit of a hassle to change floors. It's also a pain in the ass, as we're separated from the support team, so when they rely on us for 3rd-level support, rather than just wandering over to our desks, they call us, or have to go upstairs.
One of my co-workers (who is on this sub-team) makes fun of me, because he says that I miss all of my "little friends". He agrees with Foreman, and that the people you work with are just colleagues, and eventually you move on, and they move on, and they just become a fond memory you might dwell on every now and again. That pretty much explains my interaction with most of the people I've worked with in my previous jobs. I actually try really hard to keep in contact with the people I worked with on my other graduate rotations. But maybe this is just the road to madness?
If you think about it, the rough time you're meant to spend in any one job before leaving is about 2 years (at least that's what some studies have shown for the field of IT - people who job hop end up getting paid 50% more than those who stick around hoping to be promoted during the regular cycle). If you're meeting 6-10 new people every two years, you can't realistically keep in touch with all of them. I'm struggling just keeping in touch with non-gaming people from high school and university, if I added everyone I've ever worked with, I'd never have any time for myself!
Maybe I'm just to keen to like everyone I meet. That works in high school, and niche majors in university, where you're somewhat forced to interact with the people you're in class with, but isn't really necessary at work. I can get my job done without hanging out with my co-workers on the weekend and catching up on the latest goss. In fact, it might be easier if I did that, as I wouldn't be stuck having 15 minute conversations whenever I go by someone's desk.
I still feel like Cameron is right, and that Foreman should have respected her enough not to write up the same case as her, and that you should try to be friends with the people you work with, but maybe I should be listening to those who have more experience in the matter?
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