Made a couple really good friends from my early years. The last 15? Nothing. Everybody else is simply a current or former co-worker and I'm content to keep it that way. No ill will towards them (most anyway) but nothing more either.
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Havn't seen them in 33 years. I typically moved to a new position/program every few years - never developed friendships with co-workers beyond the workplace.
People good. Organization PTSD every time I get close to Dearborn.
After 25 years at Ford, I have no feeling. I am not happy. I am not sad. I am not angry. Nothing.
I met people years ago, we all retired in the last few years and have almost weekly contact. Because of the pandemic the in person contact has drastically reduced but I expect it to resume when possible. I was luckier in the early years than some who posted here because my work experiences were mostly positive and the relationships were built on team work and positive outcomes. In the last ten years those relationships were strengthened by our shared misery.
The relationship forged between long-term Ford employees is similar to that of other groups who have survived harsh conditions in captivity at the hands of brutal tormenters. For example, prisoners of war (POWs) who were in the same prison camp.
Right as in this scenario where they met under duress the long term friendship didn’t work.
“ In 1994, to real estate developer Richard Taubman. Brinkley and Taubman met in 1994 when a mutual friend introduced them. He proposed to her in May 1994, although she and Billy Joel were still married. She married Taubman on December 22, 1994, in Telluride, Colorado, near the area where they were both in a helicopter crash on April 1, 1994.[50][51] Brinkley was 40 years old and Taubman 46 and she announced at their wedding that they were expecting a baby boy. The marriage ended in 1995 with one son,[40] Jack Paris Brinkley, born June 2, 1995.[52]”
People I started with 30 years ago all gone. Great people. All have quit, fired, started own company. A handful are milking the
system still in mgt mouthing all the woke buzzwords Ford likes to virtue signal with, for the easy money. An embarrassment to the people they used to be.
The people I still know and still in contact are friendships forged due to extreme levels of shared overwork &/or abuse by management. When a group of people go through shared experiences like that, you in a sense form a bond.