Not so long ago I was having a chat with my mother. She was sharing with me a story of her friend, let's just call her Aunty A.
So Aunty A decided to start a company with her friend. She was excited about this new collaboration with her friend, this was a dream of hers. But not long later things start to take a turn for the worse; business wasn't good and both partners started to quarrel over business matters. Soon after they decided to stop and close up. Ever since then these two friends are no friends anymore and not on talking terms. 30 years of friendship cracked over something that they both dreamt about.
Then came the moral of the story, my mom told me that it is always never a good thing to work with your close friends, especially when you are close to them for a long time.
I was just starting my life in the working world at that time and I was naive. I thought to myself, well I worked with lots of my friends over school projects or some side hustle before this. It is not that hard. How could things get so bad, I thought to myself.
To be honest, if this happened to me I would be really devastated. I am one who really treasures and value friendship. It will eat me inside out. I believe as close friends, most things should be able to be talked out unless something really bad must have happened to these two fellas that caused this to happen. I really wish they could patch things up and continue this friendship of theirs.
This situation triggered me to look upon some write-ups regarding "working with or for friends" and most of them said that it is a very delicate balance. One article clearly mentions that clear communication is the key. Good or bad comments need to be communicated "honestly and impartially".
Some articles did mention that the downside of working together is that friends often are unable to separate personal and business at work. It is a very difficult balancing act especially when one is reporting to another or vice versa. But help the situation is to know how to differentiate between work and personal and never ever keep work comments personal. It takes lots of hard work to be able to learn to be impartial and not everyone can do or accept that. Emotion or old memories will come to play.
Personally, after listening to the scenario above, I really believe it is always safer to not work in the same organization with a close friend as it is too risky for the relationship especially if you hold the friendship very dear. Unless you are ready to walk this volatile path...
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