The average tenure at most tech companies are around 3 years. I assure you that most of your “friends” at work won’t keep in touch with you three years after you leave.
Perhaps the UK is different (Im making assumptions obvs) but I’ve kept in touch with quite a few from each job I’ve worked in - potentially 50% of my friends are people Ive worked with.
I also see “acquaintances” keeping in touch with ex-colleagues on some social media sites, so I know Im not an exception.
I appreciate “most” isnt all, but your comment is very different to my decade of experience. Work is a great place to form friendships.
I do think there's a big cultural difference. I've worked over a decade each in the UK, Australia, and now the US. In the UK and Australia, it was very common to hang out with colleagues socially, but I see it rarely in the US. Maybe it has to do with the "pub culture" in the UK and Aus, and a few beers after work being common, which it doesn't seem to be in the US (at least where I've lived - places with a 'bar scene' like New York may be quite different).
I may be biased due to getting older and having a family, so I'd expect to hang out after work less anyway, but I observe that generally amongst younger colleagues too.
When I was younger at my second job between 25-34, we all had more money than sense (not anywhere near what we can make today) and it was a combination of men and women. We were all single, hung out at each others house, went to strip clubs together (yes the women too) went on overnight trips at cabins together. But as we got older, and settle down, we became more of “coworkers”. I keep in touch with a couple of them once or twice a year.
At my third job between 2008-2012, I keep in touch with one guy that followed me across two more jobs until 2015. We try to meet along with one of my coworkers from my third job at least once per quarter.
I also met my second and current wife at my third job. But I can’t honestly say whether I would have tried dating her if I hadn’t known that the company we worked at was about to go under anyway.
I had a Slack group where I kept in touch with 5 of my coworkers from my 5th job between 2014-2016. But that died off.
When I go back to my home state, I am going to try to connect with my former CTO and a couple of other people from my 7th job (2018-2020). My former CTO reaches out to me every now and then and we talk. I owe him, he gave me a chance to lead their “cloud native initiatives” and hired me even though I had never opened the AWS console at the time. But he thought “I had some good ideas” even though he knew I had just watched a video and went through a certification training.
Now that I work remotely at AWS in the consulting department, there isn’t anyone I consider a “friend”, but one person who I worked with from the time they were an intern when I was their mentor.
The “team” I work with changes dynamically based on the project.
Complete opposite experience for me. Worked for a startup a couple of years as a young dev, made some amazing friends including my wife. 12 years later we're all quite a bit older and still meet up every couple of months (and now our kids are best friends).
I’ve been working for 25 years across 8 companies. Only two of them has anyone heard of. One was a fortune 10 company at the time (ruined by the decisions of Jack Welch) and one is currently a fortune 10 company. I keep in touch in real life with three people. One person followed me between three companies between 2008-2015 and I married the other.
Well the average person only has a few close friends. It sounds like you made at least one (your wife) at work, so having a work place where deep social connections are possible was very valuable to you.
That's fine, then I'll have friends in one place for three years, and then I'll have friends in another place for three years. I don't see the problem here.
