THAT'S MEN:Work friendships can be maintained outside, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN
I’VE NEVER been one for re-appearing in places where I used to work, except to borrow money from the Credit Union. After a few years most people haven’t a clue who you are, and those who have would rather get on with meeting the various deadlines that afflict them.
Yet the workplace is the new neighbourhood of our time, and for the thousands who will find themselves being made redundant before the year is out, staying connected with former colleagues may be crucial to their mental health and general wellbeing. This is especially so for those who have no social connections in the geographical area in which they live.
People who live in towns or villages in Ireland have a local community to turn to for social involvement if they leave the workplace. But if you’re living in one of those gated apartment blocks in our cities, you might not know anybody at all in your immediate locality.
If you live on a housing estate you may be the only person who is actually there during the day, with everyone else at work.
For people in that situation, maintaining a link with former colleagues could be vital for maintaining a social life. That’s increasingly happening in the US, where people who retire are more likely than in previous decades to stay in touch with former colleagues.
It is probably truer in the US than in Ireland that when you leave your job you leave the only community of which you truly feel a part.
Nonetheless, it is increasingly the case in Ireland also, especially in the cities.
So staying in touch matters. By this I don’t mean reappearing in your workplace after you leave. Most of us, I think, have seen other people do that and have decided never to do it ourselves. We know you’re no longer quite part of that working community even though you may have left only a week ago.
But staying in touch with former colleagues outside the workplace is, I think, valuable and worthwhile. Keeping in touch with others who have left might, I suspect, be most valuable of all. You get to see them moving on and trying new possibilities, and this gives you a push towards moving on yourself.
Of course, you’ll continue to talk about the workplace for a time – every work location is its own soap opera, and the fascination with what the various players are up to continues for a time, as does the re-running of old battles.
But with luck you’ll get to the stage where you don’t care who’s jumping ahead in the corporate rat race and who’s lagging behind. You’ll have new things to talk about, and the “old days” will come up only now and then, if at all.
But all of this involves the effort of staying in touch with the people you used to work with – and in the era of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and texting that’s not just more important than ever before, it’s also easier than ever before.
THE IDEA that marriage reduces stress might seem more or less credible depending on how recently you had a falling out with your other half.
But, according to an article in the journal Stress, marriage protects people against anxiety when facing challenges.
Five hundred master’s students at Chicago and Northwestern Universities were asked to play a number of computer games based on economics. To help them get stressed, the researchers told them their work placements would depend on how well they did.
Stress levels were measured with regard to hormones such as cortisol in all students. The rise was greater in female students.
But a substantial proportion of the students were married, and in this group the rise in stress hormones was lower than in those who were single.
So if you’re single and stressed, consider a trip up the aisle to calm you down.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.