a question
A colleague of mine was very upset today after receiving some bad news.
She wouldn't go home because she wanted work to take her mind off it. So I gave her a hug instead. It just seemed the natural thing to do.
But now I'm wondering if it was inappropriate? She's older than me, not a friend outside of work, but we get along well together in the work environment.
Any thoughts?
I have to leave work at 4pm tomorrow to commence my weekend plans. So I'm back late at work tonight trying to get everything finshed off that needs finishing off so that I won't have anything left over tomorrow.
And then next week I'm on holidays - oh blessed holidays!
I'm thinking of just doing nothing but reading books and watching DVDs for the entire time. That would be nice. I'll probably get bored after a couple of days though, and then my plan is to head for Byron Bay and try to remember how to surf again. As long as the weather is nice.
So I may not post again for a while. Be good kiddies while I'm gone.
Listening to: nothing - I just want to go home
She wouldn't go home because she wanted work to take her mind off it. So I gave her a hug instead. It just seemed the natural thing to do.
But now I'm wondering if it was inappropriate? She's older than me, not a friend outside of work, but we get along well together in the work environment.
Any thoughts?
I have to leave work at 4pm tomorrow to commence my weekend plans. So I'm back late at work tonight trying to get everything finshed off that needs finishing off so that I won't have anything left over tomorrow.
And then next week I'm on holidays - oh blessed holidays!
I'm thinking of just doing nothing but reading books and watching DVDs for the entire time. That would be nice. I'll probably get bored after a couple of days though, and then my plan is to head for Byron Bay and try to remember how to surf again. As long as the weather is nice.
So I may not post again for a while. Be good kiddies while I'm gone.
Listening to: nothing - I just want to go home
posted by OLS |
Thursday, January 27, 2005 | 7:40 pm
6 Comments:
Hey TFS - welcome to my blog comments.
Nah, I didn't cop a feel - she's not my type. Actually girls aren't my type. Though I do occassionally get hypnotised by an effeminate boy.
She was a little weird after I hugged her, but she was crying at the time and I know I always feel weird if my work colleagues see me crying. I hate crying in public full stop actually. So anyway, I'm not sure if the weirdness was from my hug or just general weirdness from being caught crying at work.
- OLS
Mmmm. the work hug always a quandary and I have had a few of both. I once went to assist on a trial up North and was up there for days with a God-fearing prosecutor and a nice local cop. The prosecutor was driving me nuts so I took the first opportunity to get the hell back to Brisbane when there was a delay in the trial while the Magistrate considered his decision. Both the cop and the prosecutor took me to the airport - and I don't know maybe they felt they "bonded" or something with me and they both gave me a hug when I left. I thought it was inappropriate and told quite a few other lawyers about it and said if I had been a man do you think they would have hugged me? I doubt it.
Another time and place. I am upset at work - another colleague hugs me - I only feel awkward about the fact that I am seen crying and not because of the hug and it did provide me with some comfort. The same colleague is upset one day and then I realise while trying to comfort her "Oh thats right I am supposed to hug you!" I felt more awkward giving the hug then receiving it. Where does this leave you, I think if she was upset its a natural reaction to want to comfort her especially if you get along quite well and I am sure she would do the same to you even if she needs some mental prompting like I did.
Enjoy your break. Luslife
I wanted to hug my boss this morning as we stood there in a quandry about the puppy. He just looked ashen. I know I could have done with a hug.
I'm on holidays too! how long are yours for? I have a week, but don't tell anyone, only Ozbhoy and you know now ;) (oh, and my workmates, but most certainly not my mother in law!).
I don't think the hug seemed inappropriate, it sounds to have be an instinctive thing and nothing else...something you probably did without thinking.
I find the whole "friend at work" thing a little troubling full-stop, actually. It's not that I don't get on with the people I work with, or that I don't genuinely consider them friends.... it's just that they are, well, a different kind of friend on the whole to my "outside of work" friends. I can't help but think though that we all have our work personalities and our home personalities - the things that sustain us at home, are not the same things that help us survive at work. The things I am comfortable with my friends seeing me do, and hearing me say, are not neccessarily things that I would want my colleagues to hear me say.
Do you share your blog with any of your colleagues? I have one who reads mine, and although it's nice, it's also a bit weird.
Hm.
I got close to merging the two a few years ago - I worked on a dot com for a couple of years. We worked silly hours, but had a real blast with the people I worked with, all of us in our middle to late 20s. I spent lots of the time swearing like a trooper and generally being as outspoken with my colleagues as I am with my friends. Some of the guys I worked with there have pretty much become proper friends - we went to Glastonbury together, we go to cricket in fancy dress together, that kind of thing. Even then, I think there is a physical barrier - at a pub quiz with one of these colleagues/friends we got a difficult question right and we had a bit of a friendly punching session (sounds daft, but you know what I mean) and we then both realised what we were doing and how it might look and backed off a bit. Although maybe that had more to do with my girlfriend and her boyfriend also being there.... Nothing was going on, but we had spent so much time together, we just had a kind of casual intimacy that suddenly seemed really odd for two people who knew each other through work to have.
Hm.
The hug sounds instinctive, but I couldn't have pulled it off.
ST.
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