Buddies with the Boss

[dougiezerts]

A girl once told me that it's not a good idea to become friends with your boss. She went on to explain that she was in a situation where she had to fire her best friend!
So I thought I'd ask, would all of you agree that it's not a good idea to become friends with your boss?
By the way, a guy in my office fell in love with one of the managers! They eventually married, and are still married!

[blas]

I don't think it's a good idea. Where I work, too many sups play "favorites" and it gets disgusting. And a lot of times it's overly apparent.....when a non-favorite and a favorite both request a day off, and the boss gives it to her favorite and NOT the employee with enough PTO or the best attendance records.

My current boss doesn't play favorites, thank gosh....but I've dealt with it before. I WAS a favorite with my ex boss. But not the invincible kind of favorite. He thought I walked on water and I was the perfect trainer (of course, he never helped me with my problems though) and he made SURE to challenge and press me to my absolute limit.

[lordlundar]

Well, that depends. If your trying to be friends with the boss for favoritism, then I will personally find you and hurt you. On the other hand, if it's simply to be friends and make the assigned work go smoothly, then there's not an issue. You just have to remember that when you're both on the clock, boss/employee gets priority over friendship.

Heck, my supervisor was friends with all the staff she supervised and it worked out great because we all knew that the work came first. When we had someone who didn't share this, friendship with them was a moot point.

[Shangri-laschild]

I don't think it's one way or the other for everything. It really does depend on the boss and the employee but it can be tricky.

[JLG]

In most cases I don't think it is a good idea. There is a girl at work that trys to be friends with the manager and one of the assistants. She is a big time butt kisser. All of the associates see this and it can bring down morale when favorites are played.

[RetailWorkhorse]

I'm friends with my Boss. She thinks it's funny when I go batshit crazy. (*RW drops a packet of paper* "Noooooo, come baaaaack, I love yoooooooouuuuu suck." *SM and customers died laughing*)

It helps that I can speak her boyfriend's launguage (herein known as Ben-ish). He speaks Mel-lanese pretty well, too.

[Kiwi]

people you know through work, should stay as people you know through work

you can be friendly to your boss but imo if you become "friends" you are both jepodizing your professional relationship.

imagine if you would feel if you had to fire or be fired by a friend... that would strain the relationship for sure

[Madhatter_67_85]

Nothing wrong with being friends with the boss. But everyone has to realize when its time to be friends and when its time to be supervisor/worker. Just have to realize that business is business and it doesn't/shouldn't reflect the friendship in anyway.

[Evil Queen]

I hate my current boss.

My last boss was kinda cool (Eddie and Rachel at my last hotel), The guy in New Mexico was a flake (That reem of paper is out of paper! Oh nooooo! It's a disaaaaster!! Help me EQ!), the guy at the first hotel evar kicked ass (Bob, so cool. I miss him ). I hated the lady that was my boss at the Bakery and I miss my bosses (a wife and hubby team) when I worked at The Cafe (no stories to tell from that place, I only worked there a month and then they shut the business down). The Diner? My boss there still misses me. I was a kickass waitress even though I couldn't get the cash register to work for me. I hate running a cash register...

[Gerrinson]

Well, as seen in the above posts, it can go either way. It works fine as long as work remains 'Work'. My current boss and I could totally be friends if we had the chance to hang out when not at work. If it wasn't for his kids, he'd be joining my weekly D&D group.

On the other hand, at the grocery store, my g/f at the time was another cashier. I then got promoted to Front End Supervisor. She thought it would great to have a FES 'wrapped around her finger.' I disabused her of the notion, saying that I couldn't play favorites when I was working. This led to some serious disharmony in the relationship with soon ended.

Although, to be honest, I'm pretty sure I was better off without her anyway.

[draftermatt]

I'm friendly with my direct boss. He came to my wedding.

But he's never been to my house, I never to his, etc.

It's much easier that way.

I've become friends with people who I'm in charge of and it makes it hard when you have to yell at them, discipline them, fire them, etc.

But I'm genuinely friendly so it's hard for me not to become friends.

[jedimaster91]

Many of my supervisors came to my wedding reception. For the most part, I think we'd all be friends if we hung out outside of work. At work, we're friendly to each other yet still professional. The two I work with most often are genuinely nice people, so on the rare occasion they do need to correct me on something, it's never awkward. Quite frankly, I'd do anything for either of them. Evil Supervisor Lady, not so much.

[tropicsgoddess]

A girl once told me that it's not a good idea to become friends with your boss. She went on to explain that she was in a situation where she had to fire her best friend!
So I thought I'd ask, would all of you agree that it's not a good idea to become friends with your boss?
By the way, a guy in my office fell in love with one of the managers! They eventually married, and are still married!

It's okay to be friendly with your boss, but you want to tread lightly with that. Once co-workers see that you're friends with your boss, there's gonna be a lot of resentment and/or jealousy from co-workers crying favoritism about the boss and crying brown-noser with you. Outside of work is good,but the best thing to do is to keep it at a professional relationship at work.

[Jay 2K Winger]

DG, our former Ops Manager, and I got along pretty well. I knew how to get her to laugh (or at least smile) at any moment, and I could tell it helped calm her down when it was getting busy. But she was a stickler for getting the work done, and she didn't cut me any slack because I could make her laugh.

That kind of "friendship" is okay. But yeah, don't try to curry favor in the hopes of getting a free pass. You will earn the eternal hatred of your coworkers for it.

[Retail Associate]

A girl who used to work in my dept but left 2 years ago, recently returned (June). She is good friends with the manager. She babysits her kids and even invited her to her wedding.

The favoritisim shown to this girl is very obvious and is causing a lot of resentment among the co-workers. I for one have been screwed over because as soon as this girl was rehired, she got my early shifts and I was sent back down to second.

I could fight this and get my early shifts back but I've weighed the pros and cons. My manager doesn't like me much and if I work in the mornings I then have to deal with her. When working 2nd shift I seldom have to lay eyes on her.

The lesser of two evils and all that.