"Friends at Work? Not So Much"

"It’s not that Americans are less concerned with relationships overall. We’re social creatures outside work, yet the office interaction norm tends to be polite but impersonal. Some people think pleasantries have no place in professional meetings...

The economic explanation is that  long-term employment has essentially vanished: Instead of spending our careers at one organization, we expect to jump ship every few years. Since we don’t plan to stick around, we don’t invest in the same way. We view co-workers as transitory ties, greeting them with arms-length civility while reserving real camaraderie for outside work...

The sociologist Max Weber classically argued that the Protestant Reformation had a peculiar effect on American work. At the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther preached that hard work in any occupation was a meaningful duty — a calling from God. John Calvin took this idea a step further, arguing that people should avoid socializing while working, as attention to relationships and emotions would distract them from productively fulfilling God’s will... For much of the 20th century, American workplaces were largely  designed by Protestant men."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/adam-grant-friends-at-work-not-so-much.html