Anyway, I've been distracted, onto my main point tonight.....
Making A Differentiation Between Friends/Work Colleagues
What really defines a real friend, as supposed to, say people we work with on a regular basis & get to know pretty well?
I guess I've always held proper true friends as very important people, maybe that's part of my problem. Its the way I've always been - unlike my father, I work to live. Along with my family, my friends mean the world to me. My best mate has been my best mate for all of 31+ years - we've been best mates since shortly after I moved to Geelong when I was 5, & have been through pretty much everything together. If I had to ring him at 3.30am on a Tuesday morning, I'd know he'd understand.
So needless to say I put a lot of trust in friendships. Trust is a key word here I think. I've also always been a quiet, private, non-talkative person. I guess for a lot of my life I've lacked self-confidence & that's affected my social skills. So, in stark contrast to my best mate, who is the kind of guy who could walk up to a female stranger he fancied in the street, & 10 minutes later he'd have her phone number, (just through sheer charisma, not through being sleazy or anything), I only had a few circles of friends. Mainly through primary/high school, & a few sports I played in my latter years in high school & post education. Around people i don't know I've never been much chop alas. And if the situation involves females, especially good-looking ladies I'm even worse. Seriously, the brain just goes blank & I have no idea what to say or how to act.
So when I entered the workforce, this obviously presented the chance to interact with a whole new group of people, including girls. Now I'm not one to pump my own tyres up or anything, but I do like to pride myself on being a friendly, considerate & easy to get along with person. So once I settled in at the company I worked for, I found i got along with everyone really well. In particular, the guys I worked directly with I would consider my friends. Back in those days, on a Friday night we'd head down to the pub & have a few beers, egos were left at the door, & whether you were a manager, director, causal worker & a cleaner, we'd have a laugh or get along great over a frothy.
Alas, times were a changing, & the company was going through some.. unfortunate..... changes. It resulted in a large staff turnover, & re-location of others. In days pre Facebook/twitter, & in the early days of email & mobiles (both of which I was slow on the uptake of) it was easy to lose touch with co-workers. Sadly, bar 1 or 2, I have lost touch with the majority of people I worked with in those early days.
I should take to take this to the point of my issue here. I worked my way up in the company to an accounts role at Head Office, after spending a few years in our distribution centre, located in the same building. So I now was familiar & got along with a whole new group of people. It was in this stretch of time I made what I thought was a lot of friends. Especially with a number of girls, who worked in our buying office., which was/still is rare territory for someone like me. When we're exchanging email/mobile numbers, & of course adding on facebook & myspace (this was 2007-2008) I honestly felt like I'd really made a good group of friends. Which was good, cause as happens over the years, you gradually lose touch with old friends from high school days. Particularly as I was one of increasingly small group where were still single. Many of my old friends were now married/engaged/in a long term relationship, often with kids. They had their own families now.
We still had a fair turnover of staff - I might as well name the company, they've been in the news - Dimmeys. Stay tuned for a major, & i mean MAJOR post on them sometime down the track. And no matter who it was, if I knew them, I always made an appearance at his/her farewell. Being based at Head Office, you talked to plenty of people on the phone, & there still a few in the system from when I first started, so I knew plenty of people.
Also, often I'd go out for lunch with said (so-called) friends. If someone had a birthday, we'd occasionally go out for a drink or 2. Normal things that friends would do? Eventually, a couple of the girls tied the know with their partners. I went along to a couple of weddings, was really wrapt for them. And after several left Dimmeys to move on with their careers, they'd still keep in touch via email& Facebook.
I guess there was no real definite point where I noticed that things were changing. People left, others came in, & I made friends with a few of these guys too.
But things in the place were pretty glum. It really wasn't a nice place to work for the last few years I was there. After my long service in 2008, I was going to think about looking elsewhere myself. But for one reason or another, it wasn't really until after my 2nd o/s trip in early 2011 where I finally resolved to move on. By now there were only a few people who i really close with left. Most had moved on. OK, we didn't get to catch up very often any more. They were leading their own lives, I realised that. New work friends, new challenges, etc.
But when the time finally arrived for me to move on, I was sure I could count on my old friends from work to turn up for a send off for me. I attended every single one of theirs. I even gave up movies I'd booked to go & see to make it one farewell. I was just planning on going for drinks & maybe a bite to eat a the Pub at Crown for my send off - a friendly, down to earth place centrally located, a place we'd had several farewells before. I put the word out through Facebook several times, to give my old friends(?) plenty of notice. Was hoping for a good turnout from current colleagues too. Although I wasn't hugely close to many that were still there, I had worked with many for years & years, & got along well with them. There were still a few people down n the distro centre who were probably more saddened to see me leave than some in the office, who said they'd try & come along. Thought I could count of some of them popping down, even if it was just for a quick drink. It was Friday night, I know people may have had other stuff to move onto, even if I gave 2 or 3 weeks notice. For me, it was an occasion to look back on good times/bad times & share a good night with people who had meant a lot to me over the years. Maybe even 1 or 2 of the bosses might stick their head in, it had been customary in the past, though not in more recent times.
All in all, I had been with the company for just over 14 years. I'd worked with maybe hundreds of people over the course of those 14 years?
Three people turned up.
Three.
Yes, I said 3 people could bother to come down & say goodbye. In the off chance you're reading this Darren, Justin & Brendan, thanks - appreciated it. Also thanks Rob who contacted me the following week apologising for not being able to make it.
The rest of you - well, thanks goes to you guys too I guess. Thanks for waking me up to the fact that people you work with really aren't there for you when it counts. Thanks for clarifying the line between proper friends & people who you work with. Maybe that was my fault for blurring that line. Thanks to those people who have never bothered to even see how I'm going in the new job or how I'm going in general.
To say that night was the biggest kick in the guts just about ever would be an understatement. I still have a couple of people from the Dimmeys era I still call friends - my closest female friend, for instance, had moved back to Turkey a few years prior. (She just arrived back in the country last Thursday - can't wait to catch up with her!) & maybe 1 or 2 others, but essentially I've learned my lesson. When push comes to shove, when shit gets you down, when you really need someone to call on - make it a true friend you know inside out, not a person you work with who many seem like someone you can trust on the surface.
It was a tough lesson to learn, & its sadly had some affect in my new job I have to say. I'm a lot more reluctant to open up to others I work with, despite the new workplace being a lot better than Dimmeys was., & the people I work with being very nice people in general. Only the 3 or 4 guys I work alongside in accounts at the new job have I really opened to. Even then, its hard at times, & I often keep quiet even if its something like footy being discussed round the water cooler.
I don't know, maybe I'm being harsh & unreasonable. Maybe I'm overplaying the effect of one single evening. But on a night which meant a lot me, a lot of so-called "friends" let me down, & have never really explained themselves or bothered to reach out in the year thats since gone by. One or two have, & we've maintained some sort of contact I suppose. Largely I've moved on from this, though that doesn't mean it still doesn't hurt like hell.
Just to end this post on a positive note - any girls reading this, never fear! Those days of my best mate chatting up the chicks on the street are long gone - he is a happily married man with 2 beautiful daughters nowadays! :)
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