We have no business even knowing each other. But the value of my work wife cannot be overstated | Emily Mulligan

Forget the shrieks and hugs at the arrivals hall or the way the traffic parts for an ambulance with the lights and sirens on. For me, there is nothing more wholesome than lunchtime in the CBD seeing two people who demographically have no business knowing each other glued to one another. They don’t see the traffic, the eye contact is unbroken. The bond is strong.

They’re work wives.

To find that person who gets it, who has seen you at your best and your worst, who knows your coffee order, notices every haircut and is more accurately across your relationship with your parents than any therapist. Who supports your grievances, who bigs you up in front of others, has your back when you’re not there, who knows everything that’s troubling you.

By the end of one job my work wife and I were so trauma bonded that we could communicate non-verbally.

If your work wife is sick you’re guaranteed to have a garbage day. In fact, they’re often the main factor in how any day, meeting or professional challenge will turn out.

The value of a work wife, a gender-neutral term, obviously, can’t be overstated. With the amount of time we spend at work, the characters we meet, the way grievances build up, work wives see how we conduct ourselves when we are stressed. They’re part of it all. They’re soldiers for the office dramas, knowing the way colleagues’ voices grate, experiencing the challenging coworkers that walk among us; work wives are battle ready.

What good is piping hot gossip when you have to explain every character’s years-long back story and their annoying snacking habits? Your regular cast of friends and family are not invested in the downfall of Karen in accounts. To their detriment.

Our colleagues are present as our lives unfold, day in, day out. I remember mine seeing me go from an upstanding civilian to a light-headed, sweaty mess, constantly out of breath and chugging down blue Powerade. The observant ones could tell I was pregnant before my friends and family knew. My work wife at the time could protect me from awkward questions and heard all about my weaning journey when I came back to work. Looking back, that was probably quite informative for my male work wife.

But that’s part of the work wife bond, a closeness that can be impossible to recreate elsewhere.

Having a work wife is a thrill and a privilege. Not every workplace gifts you one. On one occasion I had to campaign for the colleague I had decided would be mine. Rather pathetically, I had a mutual friend come to a Christmas party and vouch for my character. It was not dignified but it was worth it.

Contemporary corporate culture is patently ridiculous.

I try to imagine what “work” would have looked like for me a few generations back. I would have had to grow my own food, slaughter my own chickens and done so with seven kids and a mud floor.

I’m sure our ancestors who toiled in fields until they died of typhus would look with astonishment at an office job with air conditioning, warm beverages and spinny chairs.

Now we send gifs back and forth, write documents, “deep dive” and “convene spaces”. Email and reply to emails. Try and fail to make Outlook bend to our will. Sometimes it can seem like a work wife could be the most significant outcome of years in a role. Connection in an alienated, email sending, “circling back” world is something tangible and long lasting.

Chances are, if you’re an office worker who can face the idea of work right now, your work wife has everything to do with it.