real friends vs. work friends

Do you remember your best friend from the first grade? The one that you ran around holding hands and dressing Barbies with? The one that showed you how to do "doubles" in jacks and shared her lunch with you if you forgot yours? If you aren't, don't stress about it too much, it happens, doesn't it? One of you moves away, or you end up going to different colleges or for whatever reason, your life just takes a 90 or even 180 degree turn. Man, that sucks, doesn't it?
Especially when you've been friends with that person for longer than you've been an adult. It happens,though, like the blog says. It starts out with small things, until one day when you are on the phone with this person, you realize that you have nothing in common anymore except a bunch of memories of some really funny things that seem to have happened to two completely different people. Did I mention that this sucks? Now if you're the cut and run sort, you just kind of go with the flow and whammo, you find a new best friend. No harm, no foul. But if you are the sort of person who has had less than a handful of really close, really wonderful friendships, you grieve. You grieve the same that you would if you had lost a family member, because in many ways, you have. Before you think that I have circled hopelessly away from the happiest and yet the biggest corporation in these United States, have no fear. "When you stop working for this particular company voluntarily, there is such a wave of relief." Pedro emailed me this afternoon. "You have all these new plans and the crap you have been putting up with is finally behind you. But then, so many of the friendships that you thought you had you realize were only work friendships. And as soon as you start trying to have a conversation with your old friends about anything else, you find it keeps circling back to the old store. Sad." Of course, it makes it even more awkward when your former boss tells you (only half kidding) that the store security cameras are watching you and not to tie up the time of people who are still working for the company. Makes you remember why you left, doesn't it? So before you start doing something foolish, like thinking about coming back, make a list, right now of all the things you hated about working for Walmart. Keep in in an envelope marked "do not open unless seriously considering going back to Walmart" and keep it handy. You'll thank me later.