Yay for cool office mates!

I think you're being sincere, but I choose to read that as sarcastic.

And let me just say: Meee-ow!

Yippie!

And, if they are "colorful" characters to boot, it's a double-bonus.

I've had jobs where I loved the work and couldn't carry on an intelligent conversation with the coworkers, and I've had jobs where the work was total drudgery but the coworkers were like family.

The latter is much more fulfilling.

And right now I have a job where the work is unexciting and boring and I work from home and never interact with other humans except for at the grocery store. I'm not sure where to fit it on the continuum, but it's not ideal. (Anymore. It was for a while.)

I'd happily make pizzas or collect garbage with my present co-workers, if that were what we did. As it is, I look forward to going to work in the morning and I learn stuff and I don't have to get gunk all over my clothes.

I had that for a lot of years (and good, smart, dedicated coworkers), and the bosses kept totally fucking it all up. Fucking fuckers.

Nope, no sarcasm. I actually like them.

I didn't like my co-workers today because I had a performance review scheduled and that always make me severely paranoid and cranky (I am always convinced they are going to fire me, and I start scanning my boss's every word for hints that she expects me to continue working past this week), but I just had the review, it went really well, and so now I like everyone again.

Actually, they are all very cool. And the CEO, every time we gather for meetings or events or whatever, takes time to tell us how lucky he is to work with such an amazing team of people. And since he's obviously totally sincere, it really means a lot.

s_r I am totally with you.

I'm currently working at a chemical manufacturing site owned by a large, globally-held biopharma, pretty much a worldwide household name. I assumed going in that employment here would be an egregious species of corporate slavery perpetrated by Dilbert's-unholy-pointy-haired-boss types. I had a six week contract, and was just happy at the time to be earning ducats.

That was six months ago. Astonishingly, they like me, I like them, and they just keep finding things for me to do. I started out filling in for one of the admins' medical leave; currently I'm on the steering committee for a sitewide quality audit.

It helps that our local site management here enthusiastically encourages creativity, intelligence and a healthy and active curiosity about what it is we actually *do* here, and they encourage it from all the staff, from entry-level wrenchturners to the site president.

The corporate culture here is very unique; probably the best illustration of that is this anecdote that speaks to the beauty of working with Real Colourful Characters, as mightshould alluded to: a few weeks ago our senior Environmental engineer offered to watch the (busy, computerised) switchboard for a few minutes while the receptionist ran to the bathroom (there was some meeting going on and no one else was available to relieve her). Talk about characters, this guy is a crusty septaugenarian badger with a thick old-timey Deep South accent. Hilarity obviously ensued, but no calls got misrouted, and as JP said "well, all I hadta do was jest keep stickin' em on hold, now, didn't I?". When this guy had a hip operation, management bought him a bright, shiny new blue cruiser bike (a really cool one, it gives me envy) so that he could get around (the site is large and sprawl-y). The visual of him zooming around with his coattails flying, hardhat and knees at jaunty angles, is a daily fave of mine. Bottom line, he likes his job so much that he didn't feel like retiring or taking disability, and the operations management really values his work.

We don't just make widgets, do research or provide some nebulous service. This site makes drugs that really do save lives, by the time-honoured method of bulk chemistry, meaning they pour vast amounts of volatile / dangerous substances into 12,000 litre reactors and combine them to form miracles. During this quality audit, our teams have done several 'field trips' to see for ourselves exactly how it is this stuff gets done. And by that I mean we donned containment suits and respirators and got right in the middle of it.

The thing that strikes me most is how eager and excited everyone here is to explain what they do. Some of the equipment out here is new and shiny, some is old and fussy, and some is positively medieval, yet they treat it all with reverence; it's an odd mix of high-tech-clean-room-meets-the-Millennium-Falcon-meets-Willy-Wonka's-chocolate-factory.

That and I work with scarysmart geniuses on a daily basis. Seriously - the project chemist we have on our team apparently has a 3D map in his head of every molecule and peptide that is produced on the site, and the cool part is that he knows exactly how to explain how it all works, in terms pretty much anyone can relate to (lots of cooking analogies, basically).

Yup, me too. With the exception of one particular person at the moment, I really like working here. I like the work and I like the people - we can have fun together, but everyone more or less pulls their weight and nobody takes themselves too seriously. Last Friday, we all spent a very long Friday evening getting drunk together, dancing, singing and generally playing up and I have never worked with a bunch of people before that I would be particularly interested in socialising in that way with. More serious drinking is planned for tomorrow afternoon/evening and then again on Christmas eve for those that are working.

This is by far and away the best place I have ever worked and it all comes down to the people. The ages range from 19 up to about 60, but we can all have fun together, which I think is extraordinary. People from other areas of the department often comment on the atmosphere here in positive and admiring ways. After three years, I still don't know what the people on the other side of our floor do, but within our team of about 50 people, we have a ball.

Some of my co-wworkers are OK. Some are kind of assish. Most are inert (there's roughly 260 of them, with rapid turnover). They're more or less like the rest of the population. Only grumpier this time of year.

They're also either a decade older or a decade younger than me. I'm a one man lost generation.