I now realize a work friendship wasn’t healthy — where do I go from here?

A reader writes:

I started my job in 2023 and became good friends with Ellie. We have similar roles, but different divisions, so rarely overlapped. We bonded over being unhappy in our roles and having a shared male “mentor,” who turned out to be quite the creep (he ended up leaving before we did). We both ultimately made plans to leave that job, she a little before me.

During our friendship, I did sometimes notice she could be a bit immature (framing everything in terms of “high-school cliques”) which I just sort of laughed off/ignored. I also got the sense she was pushing me to leave my job, less so because it was good for me, but because she wanted our office to “take the hit” of my departure (I’m not that important) and feel like she was “starting a movement” of getting people to leave. She hated our office much, much more than I ever did. I did leave, not because of her advice but because it was genuinely the right move for me.

At the end of my job, I met with one of our supervisors, Paula. Paula is maybe not the best mentor, but she’s been overall fine to me. Paula began almost right away asking if Ellie “influenced me to leave” and shared that Ellie was one of the “most toxic” people she’s ever met and was very difficult to work with. It was awkward; I explained Ellie helped me a lot with our similar roles, which I will always be grateful for, but I did recognize we had different approaches to issues/conflict.

I feel bad now, because I know I was disloyal to Ellie in that conversation. Selfishly, I want to leave on good terms with my office. Paula’s words have made me look back and see the immaturity that I had ignored differently. I recognize it says something about me that Ellie was the person I bonded with in the office, and that’s made me reflect that I do not like, nor want to be, that type of person.

How do I navigate my friendship with Ellie now — or how much weight do I give to Paula’s words? I can let the friendship naturally fade, but I feel guilty given how much I relied on Ellie initially.

Right now, we text frequently (once or twice a week) but we now live in different states. I would say we are still close, but even before my conversation with Paula, I noticed Ellie is still embroiled in the politics of our old job. For example, some of our most recent conversations were her bringing up things were said at the monthly meeting (no idea how she heard what was said there) and trying to recruit someone at our old job to her new place of work (which is legally not advisable, which I told her and she sort of begrudgingly acquiesced).

Secondly, do you have advice on the type of people/“green flags” to look for when making friends in the office?

This is actually much easier because you and Ellie are no longer working together!

The question for you is: do you like Ellie outside of work? If you enjoy the friendship that you have with her now, there’s no reason you need to let the relationship fade. Some people are terrible (or just not-great) coworkers but can still be good friends, and now that you don’t work together, you might find that the relationship is easier to navigate. If that’s the case, you don’t need to change it … although it would be smart to tell her you don’t want to talk about what’s happening at your old job because you’ve left and need more of a clean break.

But if you’re realizing that you don’t really like or respect Ellie, it’s okay to let the friendship fade! It’s actually very normal for work friendships to fade once you’re no longer colleagues; when you no longer have work in common, there often isn’t enough of a connection to keep the relationship going. (That’s not always the case! But it happens a lot.)

For what it’s worth, I don’t think you were particularly disloyal to Ellie when you talked with Paula. “We had different approaches to conflict” is actually quite diplomatic. It’s okay for you to want to differentiate yourself from Ellie, because those differences are real ones! If you had been engaging in a lot of toxic behavior with Ellie yourself, it would be hypocritical to act as if you had nothing to do with it (although still a smart thing to do from a professional standpoint), but it sounds like it’s true that your approach to conflict is different from hers. It’s okay to say that! Loyalty to work friends doesn’t mean you have to pretend not to see serious issues with how they operate at work or get tarnished by association with a label you don’t deserve.

As for green flags for potential friends at work, here are a few:

• integrity — you don’t see them lying or looking for ways to game the system
• respected by people you respect
• when you’re new, they go out of their way to be warm and welcoming to you, while simultaneously preserving appropriate boundaries with someone they don’t yet know well (so for example, they don’t unload all their complaints about the company on you during your first week)
• not mired in negativity (this doesn’t mean they don’t acknowledge real issues or ever do normal work venting, but they don’t get bogged down in complaining to the point it impacts your or their quality of life in significant ways; they don’t seem to take pleasure in criticizing others; and, where possible, they look for ways to make things better)
• realistic — they know not every job will be ideal, and they have a decent understanding of office politics and what is and isn’t realistic to expect or ask for
• supportive — they recognize and applaud your successes rather than resenting them
• honest but kind — they’ll tell you when you’re wrong but in a way that doesn’t make you feel bad about it
• an aversion to gossip — this doesn’t necessarily mean they never gossip, but it’s not a major focus and they have some discretion and sensitivity
• they understand and respect your boundaries and that you’re there to work — which means everything from understanding when you can’t talk because you need to focus to not expecting you to fight their battles as your own
•  they don’t use you to push their own agenda (like Ellie wanting you to quit just so your office would “take the hit”)

What other green flags can people think of?

The post I now realize a work friendship wasn’t healthy — where do I go from here? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

View the full article