Studies have proved that employees are more productive and less likely to leave the job if they are friends with their colleagues. While this statement makes a lot of sense to me, people tend to disagree.

How many times have you seen people wistfully reflecting on the bygone days of their college/university? How many times have you heard them lament about how finding a friend in office is next to impossible? For me the list has been endless. As soon as I graduated and stepped into the practical world, I was advised by my peers to beware of my colleagues. It wasn’t as if I was sat down and lectured but it would come up in the conversation as soon as they heard that I had begun working.

To me, standing guard around the people I was supposed to be with for almost eight to nine hours seemed impossible and, quite frankly, very taxing. As I began my career, I realised how important it was to have a friend in the office that you could count on.

We all need to vent sometimes and no one, and I mean no one, understands your office dilemmas better than someone who lives them with you almost every day. Not to mention that having a ‘work-friend’ aka best friend in the world, makes the workplace exciting and the workload bearable.

I believe that at one time or the other (read ‘every other day’) in our career, we have all been extremely fed up with various situations, decided to give up or lash out, and the only reason we have been able to hold on to our jobs and our sanity is because of our work friends. They are the angels who knock some sense into us when we are at our wits’ end, who help us get our act together and start anew.

Having a friend at work means that you don’t have to be alone, you’d always have someone to go momentarily crazy with, someone who could calm you down when you are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, someone who can assure you that you are capable of pulling off the job when you’ve lost faith, and someone who you can gossip with for hours.

You can also switch between professional and personal discussions effortlessly and you always know about all the latest happenings in their lives whether work related or not. It also, mostly, means that you have the same enemies and, well, you can always be sure that someone will have your back.

We can always count on our office friends to add a spark to our otherwise dull routine. So, to the people who already have the best office friends, may your bonds strengthen over the never-ending, steaming hot cups of ‘chai’ and occasional samosas! And, to the unfortunate ones, may you find your work friend soon!