What to Consider Before Working for a Friend

What to Consider Before Working for a Friend What to Consider Before Working for a Friend Working for a friend in any capacity can be tricky. Whether you’re a full-time employee, a remote worker, or a freelancer with your own business, there are some important considerations to think through before taking a job where your boss or manager would be someone you’re friends with. Even though collaborating in a work capacity with a friend you already like and have a history with may sound like the ideal scenario, there are reasons for the saying that “it’s best not to mix business with pleasure.” On the flip side, if you’re aware of and prepared for potential common challenges that may arise from this type of arrangement and feel like it’s worth it to take the risk, then there are potential benefits to reporting to a friend as well. Let’s explore some of the plusses and minuses of working for a friend: It can be awkward to change hats, but you have more insight. If you’re used to relating to someone on a personal level as a friend, it can catch you off guard to suddenly see that person in action as a professional, particularly if you now report to that person. While you may have great chemistry as buddies, changing the dynamic to one that involves an inherent power imbalance (such as supervisor and employee, or client and freelancer) can be disorienting and upsetting for some people, and can ultimately affect the quality of the friendship. When you work in a professional capacity with someone, the needs of the company or business generally will come before your personal relationship, which can bring up issues of loyalty. If friends have working styles that differ from one another, it can exacerbate these dynamics. On the up side, if you’re really tight with someone, you may be able to parlay your strong friendship into a dynamic working relationship. If you’re both good at leveraging your prior knowledge of each other’s strengths and weaknesses to help innovate and solve problems at work as a team, then you may become a powerful duo. You can’t expect favoritism, but you do have a head start. If you take a job from a friend who then becomes your boss, you may hope that you’ll get some perks that others don’t have based on your friendship. Unfortunately, playing favorites won’t serve either you or your friend (who’s now also your supervisor) well. You’ll both need to tone down your personal connection when in the office and not create a feeling of a special relationship that might be construed as favoritism. However, since you do already know certain things about your new boss such as his or her communication style, general preferences, and temperament, this knowledge may help you legitimately get ahead in your career. By smartly applying your storehouse of facts about your boss-friend’s leadership style and quirks, it can help you perform better as a team and create a more comfortable workplace environment than you might have had if you started from scratch with a boss you didn’t previously know. You may be on the same page, but you won’t have the last word. In your friendship outside the company, you and your pal may be perfectly matched and see eye to eye on most everything- perhaps that’s why you became friends in the first place. But in an office or business scenario, you can’t expect to be equal in the same way since a reporting structure is involved. Your boss-friend ultimately is entrusted with responsibility for making decisions and calling the shots- and sometimes, that may mean overriding your suggestions and advice, however good you may think they are. So if you’re offered the opportunity to work with a friend, whether as your boss or your client, you should think long and hard about the implications for your friendship and work life before taking the job. There is such a thing as too much togetherness- but if you’re both committed to addressing these challenges and trying to make it work, it could be a win-win for both of your careers.