That's a very odd way to view a generic term. I don't own "my friends" but I wouldn't think twice about saying "my friends went to the bar last night". Similarly for "my co-workers", "my manager" or "my uber driver". Just because someone used an uncommon expression, does not mean they have some nefarious intent behind it. Especially when the context is completely innocuous

> I was too mesmerized working heads down with my engineers knocking out features and crunching out thousands of lines of code for a few months