Is the workplace the new family?

I dunno about you but I don't need an OECD report to know that I don't work an eight hour day. I left the 'clock on, clock off' mentality at 17 when I gave up working the dessert bar at Riley's Table Buffet & Grill.

At 31 however, I haven't given up all the habits I developed in my budding working life when I walked the floors of that family restaurant for some extra cash. Namely, my best friends happen to be my colleagues, or recent ex-colleagues.

Some people I know have a healthy ability to draw a firm and solid line between their work life and their home life. But they in the minority, at least amongst my network of contacts.

Have you, like me, got drunk with your boss? Got drunk with a subordinate? Would you consider a workmate - either current or former - to be in your most intimate circle? Has a colleague ever contacted you when you were sick to see how you were going? Have you ever slept with a workmate? Have you ever married a workmate?

My point is: I think the workplace is the new family. Or, to clarify (before you lose your breakfast in revulsion to my motherhood statements) it at least has many of the tenements of a traditional family.

There are many reasons for this: the travelling workforce, for one. Many of us moved to the big cities for work, away from family, school friends, university friends. I am a classic example. Sydney is my adopted home. I have lived and worked in the UK twice now. Working in public relations in Sydney, I often joke that the boys in our industry are either gay or English (the latter,at least, being not from here).

A girl at my current work got engaged the other day. Her and her new fiance broke the happy news to their respective families on the day following the engagement, a Sunday. But next in line were us, her colleagues. We celebrated with champagne over Monday lunch. And contrary to popular misconceptions about PR, we don't often swig back the Moet on a Monday, Patsy 'n' Edina style.

Colleagues share in this kinda Big Life News by virtue of the fact that we spend so much time together. And culture is such that we do tend to stick with our own. We need to work with people who we understand, and who understand us in order to function together properly. We need to get on to survive, just like any other functional family. And when you are spending so much time with others who are like you, this tends to spill over from the workplace into the personal-place.

What implications does this have? Is it bad? Is it good? Like everything, there are two sides to the same coin.

But it's 11pm so the answers to these important questions will have to wait until another workfamilyday.