Getting along with co workers in a small space
*I write this with a pain in my shoulder from where Brandon was stabbing me repeatedly in the same spot with his finger. I was sassy, and he retaliated.*
As a disclaimer, I am talking about my own personal experience. Other jobs are much different than my own. Brandon, Meagan, and I are good friends, and have been for a long time, and now we just happen to be working together too.
Tight spaces are hard on everyone, and even harder when it comes to working with people you have a good bond with. We are shoved into a small office, with just enough space for our desks, and some floor-nap space. We are very different people- despite how many times I hear “You and Brandon are the same person.”- and we have different ways of comfort. I like sunshine and soft music, whereas Brandon likes the cave setting and The Office playing in the background (Courtney finds sounds with words distracting and will often turn up her volume to extreme levels, because Brandon’s corner somehow amplifies sound at her) (and Courtney speaks in third person from time to time). We have learned to compromise; aka, the blinds are shut and Courtney’s headphones are noise-cancelling-ish because Courtney is nice (I’m kidding don’t hurt me).
NOTE: Take a floor nap. They suck, but they are oddly reviving.
Coworkers are like siblings. They will get on your nerves and drive you crazy from time to time. Just hearing them breathe will set you over the edge. You fight like cats and dogs, sometimes verbally, and sometimes non verbally. The air will get so thick that you think you can reach out and pull at the ropes between you and smack the other person in the room. And this time, when you are bubbling with anger or irritation, is when you learn what kind of angry person you are. In our office, we are passive aggressive. “What are you working on over there?” “Who are you talkin’ to?” “Have you finished so-and-so’s project yet?” And the tension rises.
And then there are days where there is more kinship than working (Like after I told Brandon that his arm-poking was like Chinese water torture, we sat down and reminisced on high school times and made Meagan angry, to which Brandon granted me the greatest compliment: “You are naturally very smart.” Which I will promptly get tattooed somewhere on my body to commemorate such a day). You chat away and discuss the future and dream so big that you inflate the small amount of space that you occupy. You smile and you laugh and you tell stories and get side tracked in your time. Those are the days that make the hard days okay. Brandon and I have had some awful down moments and said some awful things, but I believe that it has made us a closer team.
At the end of the day, when your partner is your friend, all you can have is faith. Faith that he/she will get done the things they have set forth to do, and not hold your random bouts of frustration against you. It’s about knowing who you are working with, and trusting what you have established and what you are aiming to accomplish further on down the road.
My advice to you is: befriend your coworkers. Make them hate you and make them love you.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” –A tale of Two Cities
