I have made many long-lasting friendships at work over the years.  Work gives you many opportunities to be together over the course of the many hours spent in the office.  I have also found that on the surface, some friendships are quite odd.  As in, not the two people you would necessarily  pair together.

At my last job, I had hired a friend to work in my department. We actually stayed friends and our friendship deepened as we shared our long commute each day.

Also, from my last job, I have tried hard to stay abreast of the activities of another one of my friends.  We don’t speak often, as we did each day walking to breakfast and eating lunch often,  but we talk on Facebook, a lot.  We continue to support each other in issues with our mom’s and our kids.

When I started my latest job, almost three years ago I knew one person in the huge organization I had joined.  The person I knew was my friend, had been for years,  so it was great to drop by her office and be able to talk about horses, kids or anything else that came to mind.  Due to political work issues, we did not often get out to lunch or anywhere else.

My other great friendship, rose from the two of us working together on a project, and then on more projects.  This friend is the age of my daughter, has two young children, has never been interested in horses, and is several inches taller than I. We make a strange couple, one of us older, greyer, rounder and stouter and one being the opposite .

Over the last couple years, we have become fast friends.  We go to breakfast each morning (clearly to be my friend, you must want/need to eat frequently), walk the long corridors for exercise and head out to lunch (food, again!) a couple of times a week. We share stories of our kids or grand kids.  I feel my strong pro-breast feeding stance ( driven by my own experiences, that of my Internationally Certified Lactation Consultant daughter and the long-term positive experiences that my other daughter had ) pushed and motivated my friend to breast feed her second baby.  I have cheered on her baby feeding success as strongly as she has supported my tiring, but rewarding lifestyle with work and maintaining my little ranch.

We have offset each other in work situations as well. I may have over 30 years work experience, but I came into a brand new industry.  My friend has helped me understand the culture, the processes and any new computer thing.  I feel I have helped her in successfully working through employee counseling problems, suggested ways to navigate new business waters and been able to give some good management tips.

Now, my two best work friends will be moving on to new jobs, one at a building not too far away, but certainly too far for easy, casual drop-ins to each other’s offices. My young friend is moving up and out, to one of our locations out-of-state.  I will be left behind to eat alone, walk alone and quietly look at horse pictures by myself.

It will be a big change and not a welcome one for me.  I will make some new friends and continue to IM and email my old friends.  I guess this gives me an opportunity reach out past my current comfort zone.  I had no desire to work on new friendships.  I had great friends.  It will be time soon to make new ones.

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Signing off tonight from a very cold and icy south Texas.  Lauren heads out for an “A” show with Feather tomorrow.  I wish them great rides-especially the most important one-driving the trailer in nasty weather.

Thanks for riding along!