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When the office is as comforting as home

By Eric P. Gustafson, 10/16/05

PIERRE PRATT/ILLUSTRATION FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

For many cube dwellers, the office has become an extension of home, complete with photographs, artwork, caches of food, and oodles of e-mail messages from family and friends.

This is hardly surprising, considering most people spend eight or more hours a day at work - far more time than most spend with family member during the average weekday.

Depending on the leniency of the employer, some cubes and offices look more like a family room, decorated with toys, action figures, and posters.

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However, this melding of home and work extends to more than just cube decor.

When you spend so many hours a week with a group of people, then naturally become a surrogate family. If you are fortunate enough to work with people you like, the level of emotional support can even match what you receive at home.

There is bonding through conversation, sharing humorous anecdotes about spouses, children and pets, passing along movie recommendations, discussing the latest reality TV plot twist or commiserating over sports teams. (Last winter, tensions spilled over in my workplace as the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers loyalists clashed.)

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Just through conversational osmosis, I can tell you many things about my co-workers' children: their approximate ages, their interests and hobbies, where they attend(ed) college, where they work, and their relationship status, to name only a few. I can assure you this is more than I know about some of my cousins and their children.

For all the enjoyment created by workplace conversation, this surrogate family also steps up when times are tough. In fact, the workplace family often provides the same type of care and support actual relatives do.

My wife and I experienced this firsthand this year when we lost our son Ethan at the age of just 12 days. From the immense joy of his birth, to the stress of an extended hospital stay, to the harrowing sadness of his passing, we experienced the full complement of emotions in less than a fortnight. Our actual families, of course, stepped in to provide love, care, and support. The were our rock of stability in a sea of uncertainty.

Yet our surrogate family - my co-workers - was there as well.

Because we were staying at a hospital more than an hour away from home, they kept in regular contact via cellphone. We made sure they had frequent updates about Ethan's condition and they disseminated the news to concerned friends throughout the department.

One co-worker who lives near us immediately offered to feed our cat, take in the newspapers, and keep an eye on things.

Another stopped by the hospital to see Ethan and support us.

Two co-workers sent us a grocery store gift care so that we could easily buy whatever food we needed while living at the hospital.

When Ethan passed away and we had to return home, several co-workers prepared it for our arrival by stocking our kitchen with food, including a homemade lasagna, and left a vase full of fresh-cut flowers to greet us.

An entire contingent of co-workers traveled more than two hours to attend Ethan's memorial service. The department also sent a beautiful floral display.

For nearly two weeks after we returned home, I would leave the office carrying pots and pans full of delicious meals they took turns making.

When I had to leave town for an evening shortly after the memorial service, several co-workers offered to take my wife out to dinner and a movie so she would not be left home alone.

Despite everything they did for us, they kept saying, "Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" and "It just doesn't seem like we've done enough to help."

Were this the only time this workplace had rallied around one of its own, I might dismiss it as a one-time gesture. But I have seen them support each other during many of life's difficulties.

When a co-worker was ordered on bed rest for the final four months of her pregnancy, a group of colleagues would often bring lunch to her house and spend their lunch hour keeping her company, as she feld isolated spending so much time at home alone.

Recovering at home from a difficult shoulder surgery, another co-worker had more than a few visitors, with people offering to take care of whatever she could not do in her weakened condition.

When a co-worker lost her longtime companion, the department turned out en masse for the funeral and supported her throughout her grief and sorrow.

Certainly not all workplaces are like this - and this is probably a particularly special group of people - but most places I have worked in my career have enjoyed this bond. When so many goodnatured people spend so much time together, the development of such a surrogate family may be inevitable.

I have become truly appreciative of the people I work with and their innate kindness. We have nothing in common besides an employer, yet this familial bond is tight. Perhaps being locked together in an office 40 hours a week forces bonding between otherwise disparate individuals, people you might not even be friends with if you met them outside the office.

Whatever the reason, I feel fortunate I have this second family. You can never have too many support structures in life, and this one fits the bill quite nicely.

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