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A friend becomes boss?


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Has anyone ever had this happened to them? Both were friends, then your friend got a degree higher than you and became manager? Did your friendship change at all after that?

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My friend didn't get a degree, but did become my boss. It definitely changed the dynamic of our friendship. We are not as close as we once were, but she is still my friend. I no longer work for her and part of that decision was to protect the friendship.

 

I will not say that anyone was wrong, but having someone to listen to your rants and complaints and comiserate with you, then having some of those rants and complaints be directed towards them was hard. I think it was hard on her too. She had to look at things in a big picture kind of way and I was still where we both had been in the past. I had no desire to be a manager of any kind, and I understood that she had to view things differently, but I did at times feel that because of our friendship that my thoughts were at time discounted and the feelings of newer employees were given more consideration. Part of this was also due to my friend being responsible for recruiting and she often chose people with no experience and I didn't feel they were trained well at all. When I would state that these people didn't know what they were doing, I'm sure it came across as a poke at failure towards my boss/friend. It was kind of like being very nice to the store clerk and then taking out your frustration with that clerk on your family. You know your family will put up with you because they love you and I often thought that my friend expected me to put up with some things because I loved her.

 

I have often been friendly with my immediate supervisors, but this was the one time that a close friend was involved.

 

On another note, I also felt that my friend and I were growing apart since her marriage to what I considered an intolerable a$$. She seemed to take on some of his personality traits over the years. I'm sure we both changed but it seems we went in opposite directions.

 

I really miss her sometimes, too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As long as you and your friend maintain integrity towards each other on and off the job then their shouldn't be a problem! I started a new job with lots of co-workers and my immediate supervisor all in my age group. I really liked all of them and became incredibly close with one co-worker. I could have easily become friends with the supervisor, in fact when we were in social settings we got along very well in a friendship capacity, but back at work she just treated people like sh$t...for lack of a better phrase. There is no way that I could be true friends with someone who had one personality from 8-5 than she did the rest of the time. It was as easy as that.

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Yep.

 

My very best friend, whom I took cruises and vacations with, became my boss.

 

It all went to hell.

 

She knew all about my slacking habits, my being late, etc etc.

 

It turned out that she started avoding me, then she fired me, and then we never talked to each other again.

 

Ariadne :(

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