Should You Worry About a Work Spouse?
There is a new trend in the world of working Americans: The work spouse. In general, a work spouse is a co-worker that one has a very close platonic relationship with. So, should you worry about them seducing your significant other and causing them to leave you?
Eleven percent of people in the workforce feel that they have a work spouse. In general, a work spouse has the following qualities:
1) You share a lot of personal information with them that you would typically only share with a spouse.
2) You confide in them and spend a lot of time with them, usually at work.
To me, this sounds like a close friend that you could meet anywhere- work, the gym, the grocery, or school, among other places. So, why do we feel the need to label them as a "work spouse"? Patty Lewis and Tom Brister had some interesting things to say in the CNN article that I referenced in my piece:
"From a psychological and emotional perspective, he is the person I can tell anything to, and share any perspective with, no matter how mean-spirited or politically incorrect," explains Patty Lewis, who was interviewed in the original article. Wait...can't you just tell that to your spouse or best friend?
So, what does her "work spouse", Tom Brister, have to say about this? "Patty hears many of the same things reserved for my spouse, including who is annoying me at work, my true assessment of some of the projects at work and my current satisfaction level with my job," said Brister. "We've used our relationship to rocket to the next level in our professional careers — and have depended on each other to call out our bad work behaviors, figure out what is the most important work to be doing, and challenge each other to do the impossible."
Continued on the next page
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