Colleague best friends with manager

Beautyintheeyes · 2024-08-18T10:45:08+00:00

Has anyone ever had a co worker best friends with your manager in a small company? I would love to hear how you dealt with it or how it affected you? My co worker is best friends with our manager and we already have a small company with and our team is only 5 of us so it’s not a big team. Often feel a bit of shadow and would to hear others stories?

Sheelanogig · 18/08/2024 11:49

I once worked for a company where the manager was close friends with a colleague.

It was OK. Job was fine. But did feel I had to be on best behaviour all the time. There was a couple of incidents when I did something incorrectly because they'd changed the project when having drinks/chats out when socialising and forgot to update the rest of us.

I didn't hang around long for other reasons.

Boidont · 18/08/2024 11:52

Hi, I’ve been in exactly this situation, also 5 person team. They were a bit irritating at points and I felt like I was left to my own devices sometimes while they went off. But they otherwise treated me well and welcomed me. I think they knew they were a bit lax so extended that to me in a sense, they’d let me walk off my shift to go get Costa etc 😂

Original poster

Beautyintheeyes · 18/08/2024 11:59

That’s nice I suppose in that sense it’s fine and more bearable, I forgot to add that this is a remote job so it’s not an in person thing and it’s all online but you know you can feel like a bit of spare part (not sure what the others think) and although nothing bad is directly happening I just see certain things. I know they meet up a lot in and are near by.

OP posts:

OttersAreMySpiritAnimal · 18/08/2024 12:01

I would say that my manager is one of my closest friends. We live very near each other, socialise on occasion out of work, and are very supportive of each other.
We have very clear boundaries at work. I respect her position and she respects mine. We do occasionally talk about work stuff outside of work, usually topics that might be difficult in the office where people could overhear, but we also make a conscious effort to limit this - not something we've ever discussed but we both seem to be on the same page with that.
Team members know that we're friends, but there's no favouritism, no in jokes or discussion of our personal lives in work beyond what is appropriate in a manager/employee relationship. it would not be obvious to someone outside the team that we're friends outside of work.
I'm also friends with a lot of my team mates too.
I think I'm a better employee for it. I couldn't give 2 sh i ts for the company, I work hard and am contiencious because I care about my team.

hattimehead · 18/08/2024 12:03

Years ago I worked for an accountants. The partner in charge of the department I worked in was part of the same church group as my senior manager, manager and my equal. It absolutely did not work with me being there. I left after 7 months. They were all too close.

I was given a verbal warning for talking to myself along the lines of “for god sake Samantha” when I dropped a stapler and it took 2-3 attempts to pick it up.

GreenPoppy · 18/08/2024 15:04

OttersAreMySpiritAnimal · 18/08/2024 12:01

I would say that my manager is one of my closest friends. We live very near each other, socialise on occasion out of work, and are very supportive of each other.
We have very clear boundaries at work. I respect her position and she respects mine. We do occasionally talk about work stuff outside of work, usually topics that might be difficult in the office where people could overhear, but we also make a conscious effort to limit this - not something we've ever discussed but we both seem to be on the same page with that.
Team members know that we're friends, but there's no favouritism, no in jokes or discussion of our personal lives in work beyond what is appropriate in a manager/employee relationship. it would not be obvious to someone outside the team that we're friends outside of work.
I'm also friends with a lot of my team mates too.
I think I'm a better employee for it. I couldn't give 2 sh i ts for the company, I work hard and am contiencious because I care about my team.

I'm in the same position, in being close friends with my manager. We don't hide it, in that it will be clear that we are going out together after work on occasion, I attended the christening of their child etc.

But we are very conscious of no in-jokes, no favouritism, don't discuss in front of other people any socialising we have done, and we limit how much we discuss work when out of work, and generally try and keep off the subject altogether.

It really is on the 'friends' to make it workable in a work situation, not those around them.