Do you keep in contact with ex-coworkers?

I suppose it depends if the work colleagues have become friends as well. I meet up with people who have become close friends but I wouldn't find it necessary to keep in touch if they were just work colleagues. In fact I had coffee with two such ex- colleagues/good friends of 30 years standing today.

A group of retired colleagues used to meet regularly for lunch, usually around 12 of us, though not always the same 12. I even drove back 65 miles a couple of times a year after we moved away, as did one of two others. It all came to an end with Covid. I don’t know whether the lunches restarted but I have had no email invitations.
Separately, I am still in touch with a few departmental colleagues who left long before I did. One writes proper newsy letters, with others it is just a note or letter with a Christmas card. Strangely, the colleague I was closest to made no further contact with me after she left.

Generally when I left a job, I was quite content not to see any of myco-workers again. Three people I worked with in various jobs did become good friends, but that friendship was established well before I left work and was not dependent on working together as we socialised quite independently of work.

One remained a dear friend until she died, the other two were friends for well over 10 years before the friendship drifted into desuetude.

I’ve got a couple of friends I worked with twenty two years ago and we always keep in touch. I’ve now been in this job twenty three years and retire in sixteen months don’t think I’ll see many of them as their a lot younger than me.

I keep in touch with 3 friends I worked with in the late 70s.
I am still in touch with about 12 schoolfriends mainly on FB but 5 of us meet regularly for coffee.

I see a group of my former staff regularly. We were a very tight and supportive working team and were friends then. I’ve been retired for six years and we still meet up regularly. In fact three of us have an annual break in a cottage on the Norfolk coast. I always considered myself so fortunate that I managed a lovely team and that we are still such good friends.

Most of my true friends are people I worked with in the City of London and on a newspaper in Spain.

No. Nothing much in common apart from work. Busy lives and moved on now. 😔

I have one i see on the school run and occasionally when shopping and another when shopping, we all worked together many years ago

I worked in the same place for over 20 years. We had "work" nights out but even though people said oooo"we will keep in touch" -they haven't. At first I thought well they are still working so don't have the time but after trying on odd occasions I've given up now and moved onto a retired life and left that old life behind.

I regularly meet for lunch with a group of ladies, around 10 of us, that I worked with in the NHS for 17 years. We get together around 6 times a year and we also have a What's App group. From my 11 years in education I get together with a smaller, more scattered group of 4 and we meet about twice a year and again have a What's App. It's good to catch up in person and hear everyone's news.

Worked for the same company for 21 years, made lots of bffs only see one of them since I retired 2 years ago. Sad but I think it happens once you are no longer in the workplace you no longer have the mutual ties that bind

No, I don't, they were co-workers not friends, I didn't like some of them because their language was (for me) coarse to which I was unaccustomed.

Yes, I do - people I worked with in a beach cafe the summers of '72-'74 while at school, ones I worked with in the mid 70s and in another job in the early 80s. We meet up for lunch or dinner, but very much keep in touch on facebook too, (like I do with about 9 school friends from 1962-1975).

A bit sad and timely a question for me today, as my best friend from my '75-'77 job is being moved into a Care Home today, aged 70, due to dementia.

Hi there. I have a couple of workmates that I stay in touch with. Some of us - retired and still working - have a book club which is a good reason to regularly meet up.
I guess the world goes on in the workplace, the gap we leave closes over and those good intentions to keep in touch get lost in the busyness of work.

Most of my old coworkers are now in their late 70's and older, some older than me in their 80's and ill. Many of them moved away to live with or near their children, a few have dementia and are in nursing homes and a few have died. I have one friend from my working days I keep in phone contact with but she moved away to live near her family so we ring each other now and then but she is now failing. What a sad state of affairs.

It depends. Some are merely colleagues, some are Facebook Friends, and some are real-life friends.

I keep up with three colleagues who became very good friends. Now we are all retired, we meet when we can. I also keep up with another colleague who also became a friend. We meet often and message each other frequently. The rest of my department I see their news on Facebook and a few at an annual get together but most of them I haven't seen or heard from. It doesn't bother me in the slightest

It’s odd, isn’t it, how so few working relationships translate into lasting friendship. I’m great friends with a former manager and another colleague and have intermittent contact with a small number others. Sad really when we all got on so well.

No don’t keep in touch. It was a different time.
When I needed support they were mainly found wanting.
I don’t wish them harm.

Apart from my old school friends, I met my other longest standing friend at work. I was 21 she was 18, it was pretty much her first job and I was assigned to show her the ropes, that was almost 50 years ago. She is of Jamaican ethnicity and the first black person I formed a relationship with. She had a pretty hard upbringing which she has overcome and has successfully run her own business for the past 15 years or so. Before that after we left the firm where we were working when we met, she went on to work for a couple of very large international corporations working her way up into managerial roles. We've supported each other through the various stages of life, marriages, break ups, children etc. We have shared interests in genealogy, books, I'm her go to person for recommendations on those, we generally like the same stuff. She's recently found a whole branch of her family she didn't know about through her Ancestry research and she has been excitedly up dating me about all of that when she came to lunch a couple of weeks ago. She always brings me cuttings from her garden or plants, she is a keen and talented gardener, and when we moved turned up with some beautiful David Austin Roses. She's a great mate, very gutsy, life hasn't always been easy for her. She's the one enduring person I've kept up with from my working life, apart from my boss which has been quite easy because I married him!

Work and play does not usually mix in my eyes. Particularly not if you are in charge. Things have changed a lot these days, but I used to keep it strictly separate. When I did my apprenticeship however, I made friends with 2 other apprentices when we attended college outside work and travelled together. One has since died but I have been friends with them both ever since which is now 66 years. We are in different countries now, but still keep in touch by email, and have visited each other too several times.

No, never heard from them again. I resigned due to poor health after being off ill for 3 months. The deputy manager visited me at home about a week before I resigned, walked in and said 'Oh you are really ill' refused coffee and then left.
I never even got a card. Perhaps it was because I was off with poor mental health caused by working 70hrs a week due to staff shortages.

Oh yes I forgot I married someone from work! 1969. A different department. He saw me passing through his office and got someone to get my number.
I didn't actually work with him.

I still meet up with school & university friends from the 1960s. Also with co-workers. We pick up where we left off!