How to Strengthen a Relationship With a Coworker: 7 Ideas 

Strengthen Your Work Relationships With These Seven Tips 

The following ideas can help you strengthen a relationship with a coworker. Finding a best friend in your workplace can make every day on the clock more productive and healthy. 

Is there someone in your office you’d like to know better? Maybe they always wear a smile, even on the most stressful days. Maybe they bring innovative solutions to the table, and you want to pick their brainIts also okay if you just want to make a friend! 

So how do you bridge that divide, the one between coworker and friend? How do you strengthen a relationship when you’ve kept things mostly business? Here are seven ideas to get you started. 

1. Make Small Talk

If you’re an introvert, this step might sound a lot more challenging than it really is. In order to strengthen a relationship with a coworker you need to create small talk environments. You probably hear the wordsmall talk and start to sweat. However, one of the best ways to improve at small talk is to harness your inner curiosity, and you probably have that in droves! 

When you ask your colleague, “How are you doing today,” pay attention to their reply instead of expecting the typical rote response. Ask open-ended questions such as, “What did you do this past weekend,” instead of, “did you do anything fun,” which elicits a yes or no answer. 

Remember to mentally high-five yourself for stepping out of your shell!

2. Show Appreciation 

Many workers feel unappreciated at work, but you don’t have to rely on higher-ups to give all the recognition. Giving a co-worker kudos for a well-done job benefits your company as a whole. When employees feel like their contributions don’t matter, they often become less productive or even leave. This turnover and lack of productivity cost U.S. companies between 483 billion to 605 billion each year.

If your colleague crushes her presentation at a meeting, mention how much you benefit from their ideas. While you never want to participate in negative gossip, it’s okay to let them overhear you raving about how much you learned.

3. Ask Questions 

It doesn’t matter if you love them or hate them. Preparing a ready arsenal of icebreaker questions can help you to get to know any of your co-workers on a deeper level. Plus, their answers provide you with valuable insight. 

If you ask your colleague, “How do you prefer to start your day,” and you like their response, perhaps you could chat with them about mentoring you with some life-coach tips. 

Asking questions shows a genuine desire to get to know the other person. It also takes the pressure off of you to talk if you’re shy. Your colleague will think you’re the best listener ever, and they’ll begin to seek you out as a confidant. 

4. Grab a Coffee 

One ideal way to show that you’d like to deepen a platonic friendship with a co-worker is to ask them to join you for lunch or a coffee break. 

This step helps to strengthen your relationship because it enables you to speak more freely outside of the office, where you don’t have to worry about being overheard. Besides, you hardly want to give your boss the impression that you’re wasting time on the clock. 

5. Find a Shared Passion 

What if you’re not sure which of your colleagues would make the ideal office pal? Look at the recurring themes in your separate lives.

Is your backpack littered with running magazines? Maybe you can find your workplace soulmate in your organization’s fitness room. Do you live to read? Ask a colleague about the novel you see peeking out of their briefcase. 

6. Steer Clear of Drama 

Hey, it’s natural to want to feel like a part of the “in” crowd. While it’s true that many workplaces have cliques, as much as possible, aim to steer clear of any drama. Alwaytry to avoid negative gossip. Remember, if you can’t say anything nice, stay silent

Plus, as tempting at it may seem to bond with a co-worker by kvetching about another personsave the complaining for when you’re off the clock. You never know who may secretly repeat what you’ve said behind your back, and you don’t want a higher-up to catch wind.  

7. Maintain a Positive Attitude

Everyone has dark days, but few want to associate with the team’s Negative Nancy. If you’re a chronic complainer, identify ways to keep a positive attitude at work so that people seek out your friendship. 

When you cultivate a reputation as an uplifting person, others naturally gravitate to you for inspiration and encouragement. You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting when forming relationships! 

Woman Finds Out Her Co-Worker’s Secret Santa Gift Is Under The $50 Limit And Has The Balls To Ask For More

Everyone knows that the holiday season can put the pressure on for gift-giving. Not only are you responsible for finding the perfect gifts for your friends, family, and significant others, but many times you end up stuck in a company “Secret Santa” gift exchange where you have to find the perfect gift for a co-worker you barely know—bummer.

But, what do you do when you think your co-worker cheaped out on your gift and didn’t spend the $50 limit? Well, normally, the limit is there so people don’t go above $50—it’s not a number that they are supposed to hit. Some people opt to get $50 gift cards to stay on target, but, others try to make the gifts somewhat personal and thoughtful. However, one mother proved that some people are truly outrageous and greedy after she discovered a co-worker who was her “Secret Santa” spend below the $50 limit. Seriously, the balls on this lady.

The woman started out by thanking the co-worker for the blanket and chocolates they had given her.

But, she then disclosed that she looked up the blanket online—and the chocolates—and found out it only came out to $30. She then said that she wanted something else, blaming her kids for her lack of money. The guy even offered to get her something else worth $20 (why? I’m not even sure).

But, she had the balls to ask for a tablet worth $120. Obviously, that’s way over the $50 limit.

She then decided to guilt her co-worker into getting her the tablet for her because he “makes more than she does.” She said if he didn’t want to get the tablet she would take the $120 in cash—so kind of her.

After the co-worker explained, calmly and kindly that $120 is above the limit and above his budget for a gift, she decided to go ape-sh*t on him. She told him he’s “disgusting” and then, asked for the extra $20 in cash. By this point, her co-worker was completely done (and rightfully so).

People online were pretty disgusted by her behavior.

Sorry, not sorry, but this woman is bugging. The holidays are about being grateful and thankful, not about trying to milk people for all they are worth. This woman needs a wakeup call. Seriously, don’t be like this “Carol.”

Woman Gets The Sweetest Revenge On Co-Worker Who Told Everyone To Ignore Her Birthday

Birthdays are important to a lot of people, as they should be. They should be celebrated and there should be cupcakes and everyone should be nice to you on your birthday.

Unfortunately, that’s not always how the real world works. Like this woman who posted on Imgur about a petty co-worker who did something really almost unforgivably mean to her on her birthday.

The woman started her story by explaining how her one female co-worker always planned fun birthday parties and gifts for the staff.

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But the day before her birthday, the woman posting (who is on Imgur as AppleDarling) said that a co-worker wished her a happy birthday since he thought she wasn’t coming in the following day. And why did he think that? Oh, just because the female co-worker told everyone that AppleDarling wasn’t coming in and that they didn’t need to do anything for her birthday.

People on Imgur weighed in with advice, telling her she should just bring her own cake or cupcakes and “be better than” the catty co-worker who tried to ruin her birthday.

So AppleDarling’s day was almost done and still nobody had done anything for her birthday. So she took it upon herself to call a friend to bring in some cupcakes for her.

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She later said she wasn’t sure why she got cupcakes for herself, but she knew she was “too old for drama,” and she even gave one to the mean female co-worker.

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But that wasn’t the end of her story. It turns out, some people in another department heard about what had happened to this poor woman and decided to give her some belated birthday attention.

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They decorated her desk and left her a sweet card.

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And as for the mean co-worker, it seemed that she came around to the side of niceness. She even brought AppleDarling some hot chocolate and “pepermint shnoops.” (Could she mean peppermint Schnapps? We’ll never know.)

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H/T Bored Panda

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