I've been ripped off enough by companies to only do exactly what I'm paid to do. That doesn't mean that I'm not willing to help colleagues who have questions while I'm just about to disappear into the evening. It also doesn't mean that I can't talk to my colleagues about work-related issues, such as annoyances or anything else. As I said, I'm polite, friendly and helpful as long as it's work-related. And I don't do it because I hope to gain some kind of advantage from it, but because I want to be treated that way myself. The fact that nobody is forcing me to work at a specific job is true, but it misses the general point of the thread (and indeed of what I said). The fact is that people are people and therefore pretty much the same or at least similar everywhere - that's the case in my line of work. And I have experienced countless times that colleagues are only too happy to share all the details of the past weekend with you, from family outings to binge drinking to adultery, but they don't give a shit whether you had a good weekend yourself and dont even ask back. Most of them are not able to communicate at eye level at the absolute minimum and just constantly present themselves and expect some kind of recognition or admiration in return. And I'm supposed to share private things with people like that? For what? So that they can work with me more professionally? Or maybe just to make them feel better about themselves? I don't care about that crap, let's stick to what we came to work for. That's called professionalism. Apart from that, it's a mystery to me why you only consider colleagues to be halfway decent if they want to share private things with you. Maybe you should reconsider your expectations.