Journal logo

Signs That Your Friends Are Wrecking Your Career

In life, it is important to recognize people who help you advance, and just as important to know the signs that your friends are wrecking your career.

By Ossiana TepfenhartPublished 7 years ago 7 min read
Like
Photo by David Collier 

Many people spend their entire lives working towards advancing their career, and take a huge amount of pride in making sure that they are known in their field. What many people don't realize is that advancing your career is something that doesn't just take place in the office.

Sometimes, advancing your career means hanging out with people who advance you - or just avoiding people who could steer you away from the success that you're trying to attain. As bad as it sounds, there are people who will destroy your career by association or even go out of your way to wreck everything you worked for.

Worried that your friends are affecting your livelihood. Career experts are saying that these warning signs suggest you may need to distance yourself.

Your friends regularly pressure you to skip work, skip training, or tell you to ditch your job altogether.

Photo by David Collier

The easiest way to tell if your friends are a career-killer is to see how supportive they are of it. If they regularly try to pull you out of work for stupid reasons, then they aren't going to be doing much for your career. In fact, they may actively be trying to sabotage your career out of jealousy.

If you have to choose between your career and your friends, then you may need to take a step back to see it for what it is. Real friends would encourage your growth. Your friends aren't paying your bills - but your job is. Stick with your job.

Your friends regularly hit you up for money, but never pay you back.

This simple money pattern is a sign that your friends don't have your best interest in mind. It also suggests that they may just be around you to leech off of you. If they never do anything to promote you, improve your skills, or even keep you on the ball, then the relationship is one-sided.

At this point, you may want to just stop talking to your friends who keep hitting you up for money, if only because you could use the money you're giving them to improve your stock portfolio.

Seriously, though, the less of a burden your friends are, the easier it will be to focus on your career.

You regularly get embarrassed by your friends.

Photo by Brooke Olimpieri

Image is important in your career, and you can never tell who you are going to meet while out in public. If your friends are the type who you can't bring out in public out of fear of what they'll do, then they could potentially hurt your ability to network with the right people.

In a lot of ways, your career life is a lot like what you used to experience in high school. If you want to get the best jobs, you have to network with the "cool kids" of the career world. The best jobs are often gotten by networking - and you can ask anyone in top levels, and they'll tell you the same.

This is why it hurt to hang out with losers. Many, many would-be employers had found out that people they interviewed hung out with losers and quickly dropped the employment offers they would have doled out.

You've had friends who got you fired from your job.

Whenever this happens, this is an offense that should force you to take a long, hard look at this friendship. Your job is your livelihood. If your friends literally got you fired and burned bridges for you, you seriously need to rethink your friend's place in your life.

A friend who got you fired one time around is a friend who will probably end up doing it again. Or, worse still, it could be a sign that your friend is actively sabotaging your attempts at bettering your lot in life.

You're, like, 90% sure that your friends are envious of you.

Photo by Brooke Olimpieri

The green eyed monster is real, and make no mistake about it, envy makes people do horrible things to people who are good to them. If you notice that your friends are making jealous comments, telling you to skip on good job offers, or offering advice that just doesn't seem good, you may have a bevy of envy-filled friends on your hands.

Jealousy is an emotion that can really harm your ability to think correctly or treat people the right way. If you notice that your friends are increasingly jealous of your work situation, you may want to back away from them.

They have a way of making you feel inferior, hopeless, or worthless.

Sometimes, the worst hit that your entourage can give is to chip away in your self-esteem or confidence. When you aren't confident of yourself, your performance at work suffers. If they convince you that you're going to lose your job, it can easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you're concerned that your friends have been hurting your career, take a step back and really think about how they make you feel. Do they regularly make jabs at your look? Do they tell you that you're a trainwreck? If these things sound familiar, then you may need to find new friends.

Your entourage regularly tells you how stupid your career is, or how much of a pipe dream your life goals are.

Photo by David Collier

Unless you're a total masochist, you'll avoid hanging out with people who are this negative at all costs. Anyone who goes out of their way to make you feel hopeless or dissuade you from trying to achieve your dreams is toxic by default.

You need to begin questioning your "friend's" motives the moment that they start telling you how impossible and stupid your goals are. Seriously, this is one of those actions that should be an immediate relationship dealbreaker - regardless of if you're dating that person or not.

Your friends keep trying to get you to start bad habits.

Bad habits can ruin your career, especially if they're in the form of heavy drinking or drug use. While they may not be intentionally hurting your career, what they're doing is still destructive to you, especially if they don't seem to want to take no for an answer.

More often than not, people know when the people in their group are causing them to develop habits that are seriously detrimental to them. You probably can tell if they are being very pushy about you drinking until you puke, or if hanging out with them often means being late for work the next day. In these cases, your best bet is to limit your friends to small doses.

Your friends keep calling you during work or important meetings, even after you told them to stop.

Photo by David Collier

While a once-in-a-blue call is okay if there's a legit emergency, people who do this regularly are just being very selfish and showing very little awareness of the people around them. Aside from the fact that it is insanely rude, it also can put you in a really bad light with your employer.

After all, no employer wants to deal with an employee who's a literal ball of drama. If you seem too drama-prone and distracted, there's a good chance that you may get fired or demoted.

At the very least, you may want to put your phone on silent. At most, you may want to just ghost them.

Your friends make a point of showing their successes to you, but offer you no advice to get to where they are.

At first, hanging out with successful people can seem good, but it's only good if they actually help you get to where they are. Simply put, if they aren't actually doing anything to help your career or won't give you advice that can improve your lot, then they may just be hanging out with you because it makes them feel better about themselves.

That's not cool, and it can actually be pretty disheartening. It may even be done to try to keep you down. So, don't let them troll you like that.

You're the only one of your friends with a career.

Photo by by David Collier

If you're a career person and you're surrounded by high school dropouts who do nothing but sit on the couch all day and play video games, you're in the wrong crowd.

People have a tendency of picking up the same attitudes and traits as the people they hang out with. This means that, if you are the only one with a job, you may end up losing that job and feel okay with being unemployed. Moreover, if your friends really don't pay attention to their careers, that same lackadaisical attitude might spread to you. You become who you hang out with - and you don't want to be like that, do you?

humanitycareeradvice
Like

About the Creator

Ossiana Tepfenhart

Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer based out of New Jersey. This is her work account. She loves gifts and tips, so if you like something, tip her!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.