If I need to say for example "Friendship in the workplace" it would be"Freundschaft am Arbeitsplatz". I imagined that "am" is what should be used for every "general location" type situation but for example there s "Freundschaft im Klassenzimmer". So where do each of the prepositions work?
#Unterschied zwischen in, auf und am
opaque cobalt
fresh mica
I recommend to check out this page. It has a good summary of how prepositions work for locations. https://resources.german.lsa.umich.edu/grammatik/prepositions/
The basic idea is that "in" is for when you're specifically inside a building/room, "an" is used for boundaries and next to bodies of water (like a country border, or a lakeside, beach, river, etc.) but also for things like "at work" or "at school", and "auf" is used for flat open spaces like fields and marketplaces, as well as events like weddings or parties.
There can be exceptions, including regional variations, idiomatic phrasing, sometimes multiple options are correct, etc.
But it's a good starting point.
am = an dem