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This is true for a lot more than friendships. It's less rational than I think you try to give it credit for in your last sentence. How long were you at your l

This is true for a lot more than friendships. It's less rational than I think you try to give it credit for in your last sentence. How long were you at your last job? Let's say you spent 3 years and 2 months there. Let's make an assumption and say that your time there was a positive one for your colleagues, and that you left with no animosity and—specifically—no animosity about the timing or circumstances of your departure. Now let's suppose, though, that you walked in on your first day knowing that you would end up spending 3 years and 2 months there, down to the date of your departure, and during introductions you let your colleagues (including management) know about the limit on your time there. Let's call this version of you You'. The way this would play out is that You' could make the exact same moves as you in every situation, and yet will be given much fewer opportunities and find much smaller success, despite there being no difference between you and You', save for this small discrepancy. As a result, your colleagues and the company will end up getting much less value from You' than they get from you. People are bad at maximizing the resources available to them.

tcbawo 10y ago
This definitely seems true. Although, it seems that a shared experience of a known duration can create a stronger bond. Lots of people make strong friendships during specific time-bound periods (high school, college, military tour).
Sacho 10y ago
I think there's an omission in your argument. The reasonableness of not forming a friendship given limited time constraints is based on time being a limited resource, e.g. it'd be better to spend time on other friendships. In your argument, you didn't analyze whether the time saved by not befriending You' was "better" spent reinforcing other friendships or whatever else. The company may have received less value from You', but the rest of the team may have increased their own value by forming stronger friendships. It's not necessary that this will be the case, but it's a non-trivial assumption to make that befriending "you" is the best allocation of resources. It all depends on the shape of the friendship-strengthening-to-company-value function.

tcbawo 10y ago

This definitely seems true. Although, it seems that a shared experience of a known duration can create a stronger bond. Lots of people make strong friendships during specific time-bound periods (high school, college, military tour).

Sacho 10y ago

I think there's an omission in your argument. The reasonableness of not forming a friendship given limited time constraints is based on time being a limited resource, e.g. it'd be better to spend time on other friendships. In your argument, you didn't analyze whether the time saved by not befriending You' was "better" spent reinforcing other friendships or whatever else. The company may have received less value from You', but the rest of the team may have increased their own value by forming stronger friendships. It's not necessary that this will be the case, but it's a non-trivial assumption to make that befriending "you" is the best allocation of resources. It all depends on the shape of the friendship-strengthening-to-company-value function.