Playing it Close to the Vest.

Here is a news flash... I don't make friends easily. Don't think I ever have.

About two years ago, I lost my last childhood friend. He didn't die or anything, we just went our separate ways, the way that friends often due. This leaves me with no friends that I have made outside of work. And here is the problem with that.

While some of the people I consider friends I hold very dear to my heart, some of them are more of acquaintances. However, it seems that the same problem arises in both situations. Sometimes work crosses into the friendship.

For example, just today I had to tell an employee that I consider a friend no. Seemed pretty simple to me, they asked to do something that I am no longer permitted to let them do (take an extended lunch). Their response was not one of an understanding employee or a supportive friend, but of pestilent child. Every single thing that they ever did for me that was even a step outside the bounds of a normal working relationship was thrown right back in my face. Every calorie burnt giving any extra effort was counted and discussed until I was finally called a two-face and other such glorious names when I did not give in. I naturally did not retun fire, although I have done far more for them than they have for me. Upon there return, I was offered a piece offering of M&M minis and a baby bottle pop, clearly a reference to me being to big of a baby to let them have their way.

This is not an unusual occurrence, however the closer you hold them the more it hurts. So what is a person to do? I get a lot extra out of my people by befriending them. I can say that my people are treated better than anyone elses and often spoiled. In return they work harder not because I ask them to, but because they want to. I feel it is very much like a general mustering his troops to battle. Is this price too much to pay?

This makes me feel very much like I am standing alone on an island, or drifting in a boat that can't be moored. When you manage people you have to do a lot of things that do not sit well with you. I have had to fire countless people, lay people of, discipline people and transfer people to areas where they do not want to go. All of these things are business, and rarely do they put up much fuss. It's hard but bareable because it is not made pesonal. And here, after 6 years, I have got the knife, right in the back, just for saying no.

In my next career, I will have exactly zero sub-ordinates.