+1
It’s a job. You go there, do your work and then go home.
Co workers can get mean, and can even sabotage your work. Some women in our office have made life miserable for three or four newcomers in the past few years. I think it really depends on the kind of office you work in. For some jobs, I’m sure you could shrug it off. In others, I think they could make it bad enough that you’d dread coming to work each day. As one of the owners, I’ve tried to enforce some civility and professionalism. My partners, however, lean toward the other attitude: to wit, as long as they’re getting their work done we don’t care if they hate each other.
+1, and to Athena and Kayacker’s posts. It’s work. Your co-workers don’t have to be your buddies. I have a few (very few) co-workers I socialize with outside of the office, but for the most part outside of working hours I neither know nor care what they do.
My wise old mother told me, “it doesn’t matter whether or not you like your coworkers–as long as they *think *you like them.” I work with several people whose death under the wheels of a semi would bring a thin smile to my lips. But I am always bright and friendly to everyone at work, though not pallsy-wallsy with any but a few whom I really *do *like.
I never complain to the boss about various misdeeds (he kills the messenger) and I never send (or forward) nasty inter-office e-mails. Simple 21st-century workplace survival skills.
Though, really, if anyone asked me to a Ren Faire, I would avoid them like the Spanish 'Flu.
I know a few people who work in offices where the women have cliques and are rude and nasty in a way that is uncomfortable to anyone they choose to pick on. There are groups of women at every age who continue the nastiest stereotypical teen girl shunning of outsiders their whole lives. I worked at such a place in college but only half the employees were part of the in crowd so I didn’t let it bother me.
It’s rampant in a lot of the schools around here, maybe because the majority of the jobs are held by women. I think it may be more prevailant in small towns where it’s easier to be someone special because of who you know or what family you were born into.
I don’t have time for junior high bullshit. I want to work in an environment where people actually care about their jobs (and care about other people, while we’re at it.) If you like spending most of your life with people who bitch instead of work, more power to you. But if someone has a better job lined up where they feel more comfortable, it is in no way irresponsible to move to a new work environment.
ETA: I am really glad I’m a social worker. It’s not impossible for these situations to occur, but IME they occur less often.
The coworkers went to high school together and now they all work together? That’s just weird to me.
Given that (odd) situation, I can see the woman in the OP coming across as insufferable to those coworkers where most people would find her no problem at all or even mildly annoying but no big problem.
A group that has been together that long likely has their own inside jokes, social structure, etc. It’s hard to break into a group like that. It’s even harder for someone who is married with a group of all singles. You just don’t have anything in common.
For example, the group is sitting together talking about what they did over the weekend, and the woman in the OP interjects something about how she can’t imagine where they find the time/energy/money for things like that. The group thinks she’s being judgy and condescending, and maybe she is a little bit because the crap you do in your early 20’s seems silly once you’ve grown out of it.
In a bigger office or one with a more diverse group, it’s usually not a problem because what annoys one person is likely to be fun for someone else. You don’t find *everyone *finding the same thing annoying or being in the same place in their life.
I came in to comment on this part. I like my co-workers, and some of us occasionally socialize outside of work (although honestly, since we bought the house and had the kid, we no longer get together with the single / childless-young-marrieds like we used to, and we’ve kind of stopped getting invitations / giving invitations to them for the most part), but seriously, if I tried inviting them to a a Ren Faire, a) none of them would accept, and b) they’d probably give me a fairly wide berth from then on out.
Chalk this up in the same category of advice as, “Nobody needs to buy a nice car. A shitbox beater gets you to the same places.” Or, “Nobody needs to wear nice clothes. People can save a lot of money at thrift stores.” Or “Nobody needs to buy new videogames. Just wait two years and all games will be on sale for $15.”
The thing is, some people like to have work environments where coworkers are at least friendly, if not social, just like some people like to drive nice cars. It’s a matter of personal preference. What works for you is great, but that doesn’t make others unreasonable for having slightly different expectations.
My first reaction, before reading any of the responses posted here, was: Why did she take the job in the first place? If it was to make friends or enhance her social life, then she was totally justified in quitting. If it was to earn money, and/or because she found the work itself inherently rewarding and worth doing, that was a lame reason to quit.
Granted, the people you work with can often make the difference between a job you love and a job you hate. But that’s different from being affected by what your coworkers do, or whether they include you, outside of work.
Not enough evidence, but I can say that it’s entirely possible that she was completely innocent and truly over stressed. I’ve seen this kind of mean-girl BS in offices and it can be incredibly damaging. I saw one woman pushed to suicide by it. Was she healthy and socially aware to begin with? No. But she was also harmless and friendly and completely undeserving of the gossip and contempt that was aimed her way.
When the mean girls were confronted with her suicide attempt, they giggled. :mad:
What is a “denial request”?
As a supervisor, I wanted people to care about their jobs. About each other, not so much, although it makes for a more peaceful work environment. At one job I had, my boss entertained all sorts of drama among the female staff. When she retired and I took her job, I put a stop to it. The one woman who was the biggest problem came to me twice with bullshit complaints about another woman in the office. They were along the nature of “she made a frowny face at me”. I made it very clear that I had no time for petty nonsense. If there was a valid complaint about another worker, then put it in writing, but the petty stuff had to be sorted out between themselves. Since she was the senior female in the office, I told her that I relied upon her to be the roll model for the younger women in the office. She took it to heart and the nonsense stopped.
It’s not a matter of “liking to spend most of your life with people who bitch”. Most people don’t have the option of just chucking their paycheck because coworkers are bitchy. If opportunity arises, then move on, but it’s not usually that easy. I worked at one job where I was an outsider to the corporation, which was heavily weighted with oil field people, who are very clannish. Since I was making over $150K a year at the job, I didn’t care if they egged my car and kicked my dog. Just keep handing me that check every two weeks.
I have been shunned at work. In one of my first jobs it was customary for everyone (who was able) to take someone out on the company’s dime to eat.
It’d demeaning to watch everyone gather, know why they are gathering, Birthday Boy look right at you, and say nothing.
When the boss figured it out, en route, he called me from the car to invite me and stupid me went, instead of just telling him that they had ample chance to invite me and chosen not to. It builds up until you can’t take it anymore and I was crying a lot back then.
And I’d call that a hostile work environment and that girl deserved her unemployment.
That’s not the correct term. Basically, she applied for UC and I objected and filled out paperwork saying so. There is a name for it, just drawing a blank…
I’ve never run across this in a work situation, but I’ve been in it socially and yeah, the outsider basically winds up shunted off to the side and mostly ignored. It’s generally not malicious, it’s just that conversations among a group naturally gravitate toward what most people in that group have in common, and it takes a lot of awareness and effort to meaningfully include an outsider in those conversations.
I would presume that one can’t get unemployment if one quit. Did the unemployment folks ask you if she was had quite or had been fired?
Slight hijack - for a while I worked in a small office, just 6 guys and two of us were interviewing a woman for a newly created position in marketing. She seemed perfectly suited to the job and towards the end of the interview I said “uh I should mention something about the swearing”. She looked at us and said “don’t worry, you’ll get used to it”.
We hired her on the spot.
BTW what the hell is a Ren Faire?
My wife has had this happen at both places where we worked together, and it bothers her. I told her that (a) she’s too mature for the cliques (she’s one of those people who acted 30 when she was 13), and (b) she’s the boss’s wife, so that matters as well.
I trust that you’d be best person to know if the workplace was really hostile or not, but from your post and this one incident, it’s hard to see anything other than carelessness. The Birthday Boy might have looked right at you, but then again, why weren’t you “gathering” with the others? Why should Birthday Boy be the one organizer his own party? If I were in his situation and I noticed you weren’t with the others, I’d assume you didn’t want to go to lunch.
If it’s someone else taking him out, like the boss, they should be doing the organizing. So it was his fault for not asking you to join them. But he did ask eventually. If he hadn’t called you at all, then that would have been clear evidence of jerkiness. But since he did call…well…it’s hard for us to say. (Though I do know how these things work, and I suspect you are right that there was some shunning going on. There should have at least been an email to everyone saying ‘We’re all meeting in the lobby for So-and-So’s lunch at noon.’ If this wasn’t done, then the boss was definitely a jerk.)
Office birthday celebrations are definitely strange. There was a coworker in the office who was hugely extroverted and well-liked. She’d only been around for a few months, but she made it known that her birthday was coming up, so we all had better be prepared!! This whipped everyone up in a festive frenzy. Pizzas were ordered, cake brought in, the boss invited. Fun was had by all. But we’ve never done such a thing for anyone else (and fortunately we didn’t go all out for her for subsequent birthdays, no matter how many hints she dropped.)