I’ve had my mentoring hat on quite a bit over the last month passing along some of the lessons I have learned in my career. One of the hardest lessons I have had beaten into me is that you can’t be friends with everyone. When things aren’t going well, being friendly doesn’t get work done. And when work isn’t getting done no amount of friendliness is going to overcome the fact that the job isn’t getting done.
In business you can be productive, productive and friendly, or friendly and fired. And a good rule of thumb is that everyone will eventually have moments where things aren’t going right. To get through it, stop being friendly and focus only on being productive. Your coworkers and colleagues will appreciate you for it because failure reflects on everyone.