Friends at Work

[John Bell <jbell -at- PARAGREN -dot- COM>]

A few folks have commented on this interview question:
>>Tell me about your friends at work.
>>(Avoid people who don't make friends at work [anti-social] and
>>those who use work as a means of making friends [social
>>butterflies]. Most of us fall in between these two
>>extremes. I made the mistake of hiring one person at each
>>extreme....)
>
>Is it really considered such a bad thing not to make friends
>at work?

I wrote this question, not Alexia. She posted it, along with
credit to me. I can see why several people have an issue with
it, but as Alexia already explained (Thanks Alexia!), its primary
purpose is to weed out those who are at the extremes.

When I have asked that question in interviews I have heard indignant
responses like "I don't have friends." This kind of response,
accompanied by a nasty tone and forbidding body language tells me the
candidate is not likely to work well on a team project. It leads me
into the next question of "What is the best way for a team of writers
to work on a project?"

By the way, this type of open-ended question also helps identify those
on the other extreme: the social butterflies for whom work is an
after-thought.

By the way, I haven't seen many other interview questions posted. I know
some of you have offered some GREAT questions in the past. (A similar
discussion came up about two years ago.) Any ideas?

--- John Bell
    jbell -at- paragren -dot- com

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