Some people would say it comes with age, some would even say certain circumstances caused it, but when do you realise you’ve truly built walls and stopped caring?

A good friend of mine recently completed her stint in my company, and reading her farewell email made me pause for a long time to reflect.

I’ve stopped caring more than professionally necessary about the people I work with. Apart from appreciating their effort at work, I drew a boundary around myself. I did not want to know about their lives. I did not want to go any step further to show them that I could be interested in anything they had to share. Why should I, if it doesn’t improve the work we do?

Her mail listed down a funny quirk, a memorable action she remembered of each person. Each short paragraph made the named recipient feel like s/he mattered to her in the span of three months.

Not that I needed to write something similar, but I think one obstacle to why I am stressed adapting to being a manager, and still trying to be on top of my own work, is because I forgot to care about the people I work with. Sure, I don’t really get paid for that specific skill set or effort, but I think maybe if I started to try..  things can only get better.