Friends was one of the most popular TV shows from the ‘90s and early 2000s, but it’s been shown to stand the test of time. The show has continued to bring in engagement from various generations. I would love to create a collection of articles about separate pieces of the Friends characters’ lives that I find to correlate extraordinarily well with a real adulthood learning experience. Personally, Friends is my favorite show; it was one of the most influential TV shows from my childhood and continues to help my mental sanity today. I recently rewatched it again for the first time (giving it a decent sized break between rewatches), and I can officially state again that I completely understand why it is my favorite show. Also, this is the first time watching it during my college career — and it is incredible how many of the characters’ circumstances resonate with me in my current age of 22 before graduating next semester.
Friends has helped me more than I would like to express recently, simply because of the ages of characters during life changes and the plot changes over the course of the seasons. I hadn’t realized that most of the cast ranged between the ages of 24-26 at the beginning of the show, which shows how at the beginning of your adult life, it can be messy. I am currently 22 years old, about to graduate, and very nervous about the concepts of what happens next. I feel a bit anxious and underprepared for the future, but Friends has set things into perspective for me. Also, as a side note, I have heard from my parental figures in my life that ‘TV isn’t reality,’ and while that is true, these facts about the show make me feel better. I think for what it is, Friends is great at showing a relatively accurate representation of the beginning stages of adulthood.
Age chart for characters:
| Character | Season 1 | Season 5 | Season 10 |
| Rachel | 24 | 29 | 34 |
| Monica | 24 | 29 | 34 |
| Ross | 26 | 31 | 36 |
| Chandler | 26 | 31 | 36 |
| Joey | 26 | 31 | 36 |
| Phoebe | 27 | 32 | 37 |
Career Journeys
The really unique thing about Friends that separates it from a lot of other shows is how each character took a completely different path to get to where they deemed themselves successful. I want to outline a brief description of each character’s path when it comes to careers and show just how many audiences they can hit with a plot line that resonates with them.
Rachel– The youngest of the bunch began her adult journey in an interesting place of being engaged to her then-fiance Barry. Between the traditional values that had been projected onto her and the harsh expectations of who she was to be as a wife, she was never given much of an option when it came to finding a career pathway. To everyone’s surprise, including her own, she bets on herself at the beginning of Season 1 by leaving Barry at the altar. Rachel finds herself in New York City. At first, she really has no idea where she wants to go or what she’s doing. Slowly, she realizes she can’t rely on her family’s money for the rest of her life and gets a transition job as a waitress at the coffee shop downstairs. All of a sudden, 3 seasons go by — and she realizes she isn’t doing what she wants to do with her life. She has always had some interest in fashion, so she begins shipping out as many resumes and cover letters as she can in hopes of getting an entry-level position. After a few episodes, she gets a job working as an assistant in a retail store, which she ends up hating because the job is not teaching her anything new. She happens to grow a network around the area and meets someone who gets her a job as another assistant but for a more reputable fashion company (Bloomingdales). She works there for a few seasons and works harder than she ever has before in something that she didn’t realize she would love. Over the next few seasons, she continues up the ladder in other roles. Rachel is promoted to buyer at Ralph Lauren, eventually moving up to an executive position at the same company. She finishes season 10 at the age of 34, when she is finally offered her dream job in Paris working for Louis Vuitton (as a high-responsibility executive position). In my opinion, she is by far the most impressive. Rachel grows into an extremely hardworking individual who finds out what career passions she wants to pursue after 10 years of ‘figuring it out.’
Monica– Her career journey is a bit more straightforward, considering the fact that she knew from the start of season 1 that she wanted to be a chef. Monica went to college and then culinary school. After this, she began her journey as a chef at a local New York restaurant, where she learned a lot of the ropes for where she wants to go. She grows in her passion for being a chef and grows to love the position. During the end of season 2, she unexpectedly loses her job and has a lot of trouble finding a new one of the same status. She ends up settling for a position in a Diner for a season in order to afford rent, but is clearly unhappy with this stage of life. She does some jobs on the side where she considers starting a catering company with Phoebe and works as a food critic for a few newspapers in New York. Through the food critic position, she is introduced to the owner of a restaurant called Alessandro’s, where she’s offered the job as head chef to create a whole new system for their kitchen. She learns a lot in this role and ends up staying in the role until season 9, but it does come with some difficulties of respect and gaining confidence as an authority in the kitchen. She ends up getting a great new job in season 9 because of her fabulous reputation at a high-class restaurant in New York called Javu where she gains a high-pay, high-responsibility role as head chef.
Ross– He has the most simple and straightforward pathway out of all the cast. He knew from a young age that he loved dinosaurs and fell naturally into the study of paleontology. His college pathway after high school was obvious, and he continued his educational career all the way to a PhD in Paleontology. He easily gets a job after college as a paleontologist, which is where season 1 begins in his study of dinosaurs. He stays on this path for the majority of the series and really only switches avenues during season 6 to become a professor at NYU. He has a few bumps in the road as he runs into struggles in his personal life, but ultimately receives tenure at NYU and lives up to where he wanted to go.
Chandler– His path was almost similar to Ross’s, but the difference was he had no passion for what he spent most of his career doing. He goes into college with no idea what to do and ends up finalizing on something that has to do with data analytics, but he really just follows the money and promise of a steady nine to five job. He likes his personal life in New York, so for many seasons he sacrifices having a passion for his job to be able to pay rent. He has a little confusion in the middle of season one as he goes to see a career counselor to find out what job he is meant to do, but it ultimately (and hilariously) turns out to be the exact statistical analysis job he was doing. He ends up going back there with a few promotions and makes a good bit of money in the time. After a long road of being unhappy, he decides in season nine at the age of 35 to make a rather large career change — from something in statistics to advertising. He starts the new pathway by being an intern with a bunch of young 20 year olds out of college, but eventually he gets noticed for his talented background and gets promoted to a junior advertising copywriter in season 10. He had a really unique pathway of doing the majority of his career in one pathway that he was unhappy in, but then making the appropriate changes and risks to start something new.
Joey– He kind of has a short story as well; he kept working to become an actor in New York City, which is not an easy task. He spends most of the series going to auditions, with hilarious plot lines surrounding some of his more interesting castings. When looking up all the jobs that Joey did over the 10 seasons of Friends, I found the list to be hilarious: actor, cologne sampler, entry-level processor, acting teacher, christmas tree salesman, museum tour guide, waiter, and barista. Along with all those minor jobs, he works twice in the popular drama Days of our Lives. The first time, he gets fired for taking credit for a writer and gets aggressively killed off the show. He works for a few years with little money and finally gets a steady job back at the Days of our Lives in season seven. He stays at that job for the remainder of the series and is finally able to pay for his own rent and dinners with his friends.
Phoebe– The big thing about Phoebe is that she came from a really tough upbringing and spent the majority of her childhood fending for herself on the streets of New York. It’s known from the first season that she hates corporate america and is a little bit on the wacky, fun side of the character dynamics. She plays guitar at the coffee shop for fun and worked to get her massage therapist license before the start of the show. The majority of the series shows her mostly working freelance, with a small stint working at a corporate spa for some extra cash. She ends the series in a very similar career situation as the beginning, but is happy with where she’s at because of her flourishing personal life. She never really cared for having a career, but knew that she didn’t want to live on the streets again. Therefore, she decided to find a job that paid enough for her to survive her lifestyle and focus on her life outside of work.
The main concept I would like to express through this article is how everyone has their own path and none of them are necessarily bad. We all have our own ups and downs through our experiences, but I love how Friends perfectly encapsulates six main characters with completely different paths for their career goals. They all took risks and moved to new situations when they were unhappy, no matter how long it took, and ended up growing to accomplish what they each deemed successful for themselves. I am someone who is very hard on myself and tends to have a lot of anxiety surrounding planning for the future, especially since I graduate in a semester. The recent realization of how the youngest character started 2 years older than I am now has brought me comfort. In my head, I am able to be a mess for a little while longer, before I can start being the mess that they are at the beginning. For me, it puts into perspective how my path is my own and there is no ‘right’ direction for me to go.