This Is a Workplace: We Are Coworkers, NOT FAMILY!!!!!!!

WHY DO GROWN-ASS ADULTS NOT UNDERSTAND THIS? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHYYYYYYYYY????

Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash

Some people genuinely believe their coworkers are their family members — and it never stops blowing my mind.

Yes, a workplace is a social environment. People talk, joke, bond, whatever. But let’s get one thing straight:

It is a professional space first.

• Not therapy.
• Not a replacement family.
• Not a place to fill the emotional void in your life.

Somehow, people have completely blurred these lines. They treat coworkers — people who have full lives outside of this building — as if we are their only support system, their inner circle, their default “family.” As if we exist solely to fill whatever loneliness they haven’t addressed.

Listen, I get it. For some people, work is their entire life. But that’s not true for everyone. And it is definitely not true for me.

For me, work is just that: work. Come in. Do my job. Leave. Simple.

But the moment you show up with this mindset, you instantly get singled out as “antisocial” or “cold” — simply because you don’t need coworkers to be your stand-in siblings.

To the people who insist “coworkers are your family”: Please seek therapy. Seriously.

Just because you don’t have friends or family outside of work doesn’t mean the rest of us are in that same situation. Some of us actually have lives beyond fluorescent lights and recycled air.

Work is a place to — shockingly — work.

• Not trauma bond.
• Not overshare.
• Not play pretend-family.

If you want a family so badly, go create one with people who have the same emotional needs as you.

Just leave me the hell out of it.