Blog From A Broad

ever so lonely

From a tech writing newsletter I received recently:

WritersUA is running a poll at the moment, asking: "How many of your team members are also close friends?" So far, 40% of respondents have said they have *no* close friends in their team and 38% have said they have only one or two. This should prove to be no surprise to those who have heard of the concept of professional loneliness. This is a state of self-imposed limits, caused by the world of niches and specialisms that we live in today.



So it's your duty to befriend a technical author today. Bring chocolate.



In all seriousness, I found these results to be rather surprising. Almost all of my close friends are current or ex-workmates. Even though we've only got two authors at this office, I would consider my teammate a good friend (even though geography makes it very difficult to socialise outside of work). If we lived closer to our Chalfont office, I would definitely socialise with the authors based there. So why is there so much "professional loneliness" in our field?