Would you voluntarily go to a party given by people with whom you work?

My coworkers aren't so bad, but we rarely socialize outside of work. I've been to one party at my favorite coworker's house and gone to a movie with her on the weekend (hi, Minx; I know you're reading this), and I've been to two other un-official parties and maybe gone on two other movie dates with coworkers. That's in five years; not a lot of extracurricular socializing.

Mostly we hang out with Jeremy's coworkers. They're not lawyers.

I guess this kind of ties in with the lunch hour question from a while ago, but I'm just curious -- do you socialize with your coworkers outside of the office? Are they people you'd invite to your house?

-- Anonymous, September 25, 1999

Answers

Well, my coworkers at GW were quite cool. The guy who brought me on board, Josef is a really NICE guy and we'd been friends before I started working there.

The bossman Dave is a really cool laid back bossman.

Generally drinks after work and invitations to dinner parties were a common occurrence.

Then Josef quit and moved to NC, and now my project has been canceled and I've been let go.

It remains to be seen whether the triad of guys at my upcoming job will be as cool as Dave, Josef & co.

However, the omens are good: during my interview I discovered that one of the guys is a Star Wars freak, and the bossman gave me a ride to the Metro afterwards.

They're also all in my age bracket or not more than 10 years older. I'm just getting sick and tired of working with/for guys all the time. Show me the girls!

-- Anonymous, September 25, 1999

an absolute YES!

this is my first job, and i've been spoiled rotten the whole time. i work for this massive coroporation, but on this really small team - like 7 or 8 people. when i started, all of us were under 30, and my boss was about... hmmm i don't know, 42? and he was just the absolute BEST boss. we all hang out socially, not regularly anymore because several people (3) have gone off and had babies. *grumble grumble* but we have a fabulous time at work and a fabulous time outside of work.

of course, things started to fall apart late last year. the co-worker who was also a very close friend, and the youngest member of the team, quit and moved back to the motherland (canada), then the really cool boss quit and went to another company, NOW the other close friend/co-worker quit and went to the same company the old boss is at. i believe i'm next in line...

if i don't leave soon, i'll be the last one there surrounded by managers and ladder-climbers. and that would suck.

i have until december to enjoy the remnants of the team; our admin, our systems guy (the eye candy), and our token musician-working-to-pay-for-recording-time guy. my new boss is cool. he's my old boss' boss and currently doing two jobs. yeah. the pressure is in a rapid down-trickle right now.

okay i have way to much to say about this. i'll stop before it turns into a huge massive rant.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

Yes, most of my co-workers are cool, even the lawyers, but then they don't practice law, and some of them are even young and even gay, so maybe that's it. Our office has all ages of people from about 22 to about 70, and I like that, as well as the other kinds of diversity we have going (sexual and cultural).

I don't socialize with the people at worl though, not much... most of them don't live in SF, for one thing. If they did, I probably would visit some of them, and vice versa, I suppose.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

...my co-workers are much cooler than myself --- if i hung out with them [more often], i'd have to up my wardrobe to "hip" and adopt more snowboarding-meets-java-technology lingo...but yes, they are one of the only reasons i've contined working where i do....

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999

My coworkers are nice guys, but I don't socialize with them much. We have lunches together and once in a while my boss will take us all out for drinks/dinner but that's the extent of it.

I'm the only one who's not married in the bunch and most of them have children to go home to. I do play tennis with a couple of them though.

I socialize with one woman who works here, but we're not really co-workers. We don't do any work together, we just work at the same place.

I'm with the other person who says she only works with guys, I'd love for more women to work here. I'm in Information Technology and there are maybe 10 women total, and most of them are admins or support staff. I'm practically the only woman programmer here.

Colleen

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999

They're nice, but they're not cool. A couple of them I like and enjoy talking with about what we did on our weekend type stuff. I'd probably go to their parties, if they had parties. On the other hand, I didn't invite them to my party last July when we were inviting the whole world.

They're all people with kids and minivans. One of them is way older and acts like a mom and drives me crazy in other ways. Our boss is way older but is pretty cool.

I miss working with outrageous gay men and single women who tell stories about their weekend adventures. The people her are really straight and I feel like an alien among them.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999

NO....they suck ass. Most of them have kids, are Republicans (yikes) and I am the only artist here in a sea of Tech dudes and Admin women (read: nightmare). They don't GET me or like me and it's been horrible. But I am getting paid to be here, and the ones who sign my check like me the most, so SCREW YOU ALL, you conformist, conventional, closed-minded idiots.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2001