When you first begin working somewhere, you usually know no one and have none of your coworkers’ numbers saved in your phone.

But once you get to know everyone, you start to build your arsenal of useful and friendly contacts. These are vital to continuing any difficult job. As one of my managers once told me… “You have to build your army.”

Here are 9 texts you send to the special few in your coworker army:

1. “It was SO wild last night.”

This usually follows an abnormally horrible shift you worked. Everything went wrong. Multiple people called out, several customers were ready to meet you in the parking lot, and you were stressed the entire time. You have to tell your coworker so they can be grateful they were off and so that you can feel like someone understands your pain… how else would you cope??

2. “Hey I’m gonna be a few mins late. Sorry. I’m on my way tho.”

You never just don’t show, but you choose to give a heads up so they aren’t asking everyone if they’ve seen you. Maybe you hit traffic… maybe you took way too long getting ready. It be like that sometimes.

3. “Could you be the best person ever and trade shifts with me?”

This is the reason why you have about 10 coworkers’ numbers even though you only are good friends with 4 of them. You need those extra 6 for last minute shift-trade options!

The text would end with “take my shift” but uhh if you work retail like I do, you need all the hours you can get. You only do trades, unless there is a lot going on and you just can’t fit any hours in. I don’t send this text often since I’m really lame and spend most of my time at work or at school, but I imagine normal people send this regularly.

4. “Are you at work rn?”

There are all sorts of things that could follow this question. You could be asking it to know what managers were there at the time, wondering if they could do you a favor, or just curious as to what was going on.

5. “I’m working tonight now, I got called in.”

This could be filled with either joy or dismay, depending on how you feel about your current amount of hours. This text also tends to go to family members, so you don’t get 10 missed calls from your parent wondering where you are.

6. “I’m sorry to bother you, but how do you ____?”

There never is enough time to fully train someone. Never. There will always be questions down the road. Luckily, if you are like me, you have a few contacts saved of coworkers that seem to know the answer to everything. You just have to hope and pray they answer quickly.

7. “You would not BELIEVE what a customer said to me earlier…”

If you think you’ve seen/heard it all… you haven’t. Customers are capable of anything.

Also, these texts tend to be great entertainment.

8. “I’m freaking gonna quit.”

Everyone goes through periods of time where it seriously feels like they can go on no longer. You have thoroughly convinced yourself that you will quit. But this text is usually followed by…

9. “I’m not actually gonna quit. I need this job.”

“Lol no I’m broke I need this paycheck.” For me it’s… “lol no I plan on keeping this job and using it as a stepping stone to get to my actual career.” Either way, you’re not going anywhere. This gives you coworker some peace of mind. For a second they probably thought you were going to leave them to suffer alone!

Now that you realize your army of coworkers is extremely important... go ahead and text those that are in it saying how grateful you are for them. I sure am grateful for mine and that they put up with me.