I am an employment lawyer in Seattle Washington and I represent workers in lawsuits against their employers and through my experience representing workers I've learned a lot about working relationships and that those co-workers who you may think are your friends turn out not to be your friends when it really matters so in this video I'm going to go through my top four reasons why your co-workers are not your friends and stick around for my number one reason at the end of this video because it actually came up in one of my recent cases and it's the reason that I made this video so stick [Music] around my first reason why co-workers are not your friends is that working relationships are situational and what I mean by that is that you don't pick your co-workers and most of the time once you leave a job you won't ever see those co-workers again and this Dynamic can make working relationships confusing because it can feel like you were developing strong friendships with your co-workers but those strong strong friendships usually melt away the second you're not around each other every day your working relationships come about because you're working together in the same environment all day every day with those same people but importantly those working relationships are very different from the relationships you form outside of work because at the end of the day Your Role at the company and the tasks your employer assigns to you dictate who you talk to and who you interact with at work it's not really your choice at all it's it's your employer's choice and although these working relationships can feel like true friendships they usually fall apart when tested so when you really need one of your co-workers to have your back and stand up to your employer with you they usually just don't and I lead with this point about working relationships being situational because it's really the foundation for the rest of the reasons in this video so let's go to the next one my next reason why your co-workers are not your friends is that when HR starts asking questions people think about their jobs not their co-workers and this one goes back to my first point about working relationships being situational the reason people go to work is to make money not to make friends so when HR comes around and starts asking questions self-preservation kicks in and those friends you thought you had might not back you up in the way you thought they would have because supporting a cooworker can be risky if it upsets the company especially if it means accusing the company or management of wrongdoing most co-workers will not want to go against the company and risk their job let me give you an example say John Doe reports his manager to HR for harassing him so HR begins an investigation and Jon thinks to himself oh good I will have a bunch of my co-workers in my corner supporting my side of the story but when HR asks those co-workers for their statements they don't have anything to say to support JN because they don't want to get caught up in Jon's problem and risk putting a Target on their own back so instead they just don't say anything at all and sometimes people will even support the employer to get in the employer's good graces and that brings me to my next reason my next reason that your co-workers are not your friends is competition here's a hard truth in most workplaces everyone is competing for those higher positions and better pay even if you were friends with your co-workers at the end of the day you're all competing in the same race everyone wants to be in their boss's good grad and be the star employee so that when promotions come around they're on top of that list of candidates and this competitive nature of working relationships makes these relationships very different than the kinds of friendships you might make outside of work this doesn't mean you can't have genuine connections at work but is important to be mindful of the underlying competitive nature of these relationships because for instance the things you say to your co-workers in confidence might come back to haunt you if a coworker can use it against you to make themselves look better in in front of the employer and I've seen it happen a lot so my point with this one is just to be careful with what you say to your co-workers okay let's go to the next one my number one reason why your co-workers are not your friends has to do with legal claims if you end up bringing a legal claim against your employer those coworker friendships will fade away so quickly if they are still working for that employer and that second part is important here if the coworker no longer works for the company then all bets are off they might find some satisfaction in supporting you against the employer but if they are still working for the company their loyalty will probably be with the company not you and it makes sense and I don't fault anyone for this at the end of the day the employer is signing their paychecks which puts money in their pocket and food on their table so they're not going to jeopardize that out of some loyalty they have to a coworker it's not because they're heartless it's because they have their own lives and families to worry about if they think supporting your claim or testifying on your behalf will risk their livelihood they probably won't support you and in some cases they might even say whatever the company tells them to say which will hurt you and believe it or not that actually happens a lot and it even happened in a recent case of mine in my case my client was absolutely certain that her cooworker would be a friendly witness to her only to find out that her cooworker friend had actually sided with the company and ended up testifying against my client and that coworker even divulg things that my client had told her in confidence so it just goes to show you that your co-workers are not your friends so there you have it now you know my top four reasons why co-workers are not friends but your co-workers are not the only ones to watch out for to learn why HR is not your friend and how to protect yourself watch my video on why HR is not your friend I'll link to it over here and if you enjoyed this video give it a like and follow my channel I make videos about the laws that protect workers the more we hold employers accountable for the wrongdoing the more we protect other workers that's all for me this week see you next time