Cooking the Books podcast: Stop friends sabotaging your career

When you're at work friends can be the people who make a long day go faster. Photo / 123RF

Each week the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's what to do when friends and career collide. Hosted by Frances Cook.

They do say that it's not what you know, but who you know.

When you're at work friends can be the people who make a long day go faster, or the people who save you when you're in a pinch. Whether it's the day-to-day grind or a full-blown emergency, it helps to have people in your corner.

But friends aren't always a blessing.

Keep in mind that we spend the majority of our waking hours at work. No matter how much you usually like someone, work politics can put a strain on even the best of buddies.

And of course, not everyone will be your friend. When you've got enough people in a room together, some are guaranteed to rub each other the wrong way.

You likely spend more time with your co-workers than your spouse, but you have absolutely no say on who those co-workers are.

I called Rachel Morrison, AUT senior lecturer in organisational psychology, for the latest Cooking the Books podcast.

We talked about how work friendships can go wrong, how to neutralise a frenemy, and when it's time to give up and alert the boss.

For the interview, listen to the podcast.

If you have any questions about this episode or something you'd like to feature in a future episode, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here and Twitter here.

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