I miss the restaurant. FoH was always a slow cat-fight with lots of low-key drama. You make a few friends, turn some tables, grab a beer and go home. It’s uncomplicated work (simple doesn’t always mean easy), or was in my time.
At the IT jobs you have the passionate and the jobbers. I enjoy debating stupid tech things with people but I get that at the end of the day they all go home to their families and real friends after. Our big deal is that even when we’re fighting or Dave’s being a right prick today, we can cooperate and work together like professional adults; and then some of us will hotly debate when and why ipv6 will never happen or something lile that.
But that may be an IT thing. They throw you together for a few years until they cut away half your team, and you have to decide how close you are as friends. The job I quit last year, some of us are on great terms, and we’re meeting tonight. I’m still on a Skype chat - sometimes a call, usually a rolling chat - with some peers from 2003.
There’s no rule that requires you to be friends with your workmates. Sometimes you are, but don’t force it. If you can work professionally with the dinks and make 1-2 actual friends, that’s maybe okay. Ultimately you need to survive work to live, and a good social connection is a bonus that isn’t always gonna happen.