It’s important to have fun at work. Not every hour, day, or necessarily every week, even. But overall, you should be able to find opportunities to interject some fun into your work. Successfully completing challenging professional goals is difficult so being able to find humour and cultivating a culture where levity is normalized is incredibly important. Having some fun is an important aid and complement to hard work.
Additionally, a huge amount of your time is spent working. If you’re able to find elements of fun in it, it makes your entire work experience that much more positive. While that’s not a revolutionary concept, it’s something you rarely hear spoken about as an explicit objective, despite the fact that it can be a really important feature of a healthy work culture.
There is a key distinction between the concept of having fun with your colleagues and becoming personal friends with them. Being ‘friends’ with your colleagues is certainly not a pre-requisite to having fun and enjoying working with them. I have worked with many colleagues that I wouldn’t want to spend meaningful time with outside of work, and yet have really enjoyed the experience of working closely together with over many years. I see people rightfully be wary of how close of a relationship they develop with a boss or direct report (and occasionally peer); however, you can remain colleagues and still have a lot of fun working together and from my perspective, that’s not only ok, it’s also a wonderful thing.