Lessons I learned from: FRIENDS

I wanted to write about lessons I learned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer because its my favourite show of all time, but apparently that’s too niche, so I’m going mainstream with the only show we’ve all seen more than once. 

1. Never wake a sleeping baby. 
2. Read the email before you say thanks for it. 

When Ross and Rachel get back together after the girl from the copy place, its because Rachel has written a long letter and Ross ignores it and just says amazing, yes, lets get back together. Turns out he hasn’t actually read it and realised that he is meant to take responsibility for everything that happened. 

This happens to me all the time- I’ve asked for something via email, it comes on the attachment, before I read it, I hit reply and say “Thanks so much for sending”. Two days later, I come to use the attachment and either it doesn’t open or its not the right thing- and now I have to come back to that person with my tail between my legs to ask for more information. Someone once gave me the outstanding advice to never say thank you for an email before you’ve made absolutely sure its got everything you need. 

3. Don’t work with friends. 

Phoebe plays guitar outside Monica’s restaurant and it is an unmitigated disaster. Rachel works with Gunther, she’s appalling but he can’t fire her. In general, its a really nice idea to work with people you have been friends with for a long time, you know everything about them, right? Wrong. You don’t know the work version of that person, and its almost always a bad idea to try and merge worlds- unless you are both entirely aware of this, or aren’t going to actually work together. Friends you make at work, however, are great. 

4. Don’t sit in your labcoat. 

When Joey works at Ross’ museum, and learns that they can’t sit together at lunch (see above); there’s huge controversy at the idea of “mixing”. I don’t think the issue here is that people that work on certain things sit together at lunch, its quite normal- where I think they go wrong is making a song and dance about it by wearing the labcoat. If they weren’t wearing the labcoat, people would approach more, and it wouldn’t give off the same “us and them” vibe. 

5. You don’t need to fire someone to look like the boss, but it helps. 

Probably the moment of FRIENDS that I relate to most from a work perspective is that absolute horror at being made the boss, often after a long time of not being the boss. Its bloody miserable, you don’t know who your friends are any more and everyone is testing you to see if you’re going to “be like the old boss” or “become a bitch”. When Monica becomes head chef at her first restaurant (because she’s good at it by the way) she has this horrid experience with all of the team that makes her miserable; she hires Joey and then they concoct a plan for him to get fired publicly to make her look like she’s willing to be mean. This is so important for a lot of reasons, not least that she is a female trying to assert her way in a traditionally male dominated space, but also because most team leaders don’t have an embedded stooge to help them out when they need to show they are serious. In reality, being the boss at the beginning is really hard, you have to navigate your own style and inevitably make mistakes. I don’t think firing someone publically is the answer, but I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t wished there was a stooge for me a few times!

6. Don’t eat other people’s food from the fridge. 

I don’t like Ross, but I’ve never empathised more than when someone at the museum starts eating his sandwiches. 

7. Don’t date clients. Even one’s as beautiful as Joshua.  

8. Don’t bring your other half to the office/office party/anywhere. 

There’s nothing more cringe than when Ross rocks up to Rachel’s office with a full picnic and ends up setting fire to things with the candle. But I’m always amazed at the people who bring their partner to the office party, or just invite them to show up for work drinks- we all know this makes things really awkward and who doesn’t love that ability to have a work persona without your other half around?

Gosh, this blog could have gone on forever, but hopefully a few of these have resonated with you. If you have enjoyed this even at all, I’d be so immensely grateful if you’d pop a comment on the LinkedIn post- if not, I’ll see you next week for the next sermon (don’t worry, it won’t be Buffy the Vampire Slayer!)