Some people think that it's a good idea to socialise with work colleagues during evenings and weekends. Other people think it's important to keep working life completely separate from social life. Discuss both views and give your opinion
The great public discourse of contemporary times is aligned with a dilemma that one should avoid socializing after work with colleagues, or draw a line between personal and professional realms. This essay will discuss both sides and share a plausible opinion.
A lobby propounds that setting boundaries between work and social life is imperative. If the available time, after job, is devoted to coworkers, families will be ignored, which will precipitate disruptions in marital life, alienating and ignoring children. Hence, this time should be devoted to families only. Moreover, such endeavors lead to oversharing of personal details with co-personnel, which could be used against, or become a part of organizational politics. For example, in Japan, many often avoid going out with their co-workers since they do not want to be a part of workplace politics, or overenthusiastically share information about their familial environment, fearing that this could be weaponised and used against them.
However, some assert that mingling with colleagues fetch myriad benefits, such as getting to know each other, by learning about habits of their team members, routines, likes and dislikes; consequently, fostering a conducive and supportive working environment. Additionally, engaging for exponentially long hours at jobs can engender mental health issues. So, spending cheerful moments with fellow workers aids in relaxing and rejuvenating stressed minds by metabolising stress hormones. To corroborate, a recent study conducted on two groups revealed that those mingling with fellow personnel outside working hours, were more content than their counterparts avoiding this practice.
To conclude, both perspectives hold substance and I believe there should be a balance between the both: one should spend moderate time with colleagues, and families should not be ignored at the expense of devoting all the free time to those sharing work space.
