This. And yes, totally.
I’ve decided to participate. It just seems easier than making my short time awkward. I’m looking at it this way: my huge salad Friday was enough for lunch and supper, plus I am getting paid for half of that lunch hour (I normally just take half an hour for lunch.) And I definitely am not a lunch person. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it if the boss wants to take me out for lunch frequently. So weird working in such a small office. There are the same issues as what you would encounter in a large office, but just so much more concentrated and obvious. Thanks for all of the input. As usual, I’m making things more difficult than they need to be. I’m still confused about my presence there. The lady I’ve replaced retired and I’m just dying to know why they just didn’t ask her to stay for two extra months (they didn’t and she doesn’t know why, either,) rather than training me, setting me up with the necessary computer credentials, access to all of their credit cards and banks and a badge. It just doesn’t make sense.
It will - you just don’t have enough info to make sense of it…
Is there any chance they could potentially offer you a full time position if it works out?
These kinds of things are always awkward.
I once had to cover for the Office Admin when she was out on personal leave. One of the jobs I inherited was the “Sunshine Fund” which was a list of voluntary contributions for things like group flowers and gifts. It was funny to me (well, actually it wasn’t) how the lowest paid employees were usually the most generous, while the higher paid employees either didn’t participate or handed over something ridiculous like $3. And looking over the list of contributors, the same 5 people contributed 90% of the fund. I hated managing that fund.
A few weeks ago, one of the big managers’ brother died of cancer. Since the Office Manager was on vacation for 2 weeks, he asked me to send out an email letting people know, and to also send flowers from the group. I sent an email out asking for contributions, and got the princely sum of $20. Can you imagine what a $20 bouquet would have looked like? So I bumped it to $50, and made a donation to the American Cancer Society. At least I can write off the $35 I personally contributed.
I can’t wrap my brain around the fact you actually have to pay for your own team lunches.
This. No shame, just bow out.
A birthday is a “team lunch”?
I’ve worked plenty of places where on occasion, the whole team goes out to lunch, and the company pays.
But I’ve never worked anywhere where a voluntary birthday lunch organized by a group of employees was paid for. Seems like if that was the case, you’d get a paid lunch twice a week once it was even a moderately-sized small company.
That is the point at which I’d just send an email out to everyone about if we should just cancel the fund. Why go to all that trouble if most people aren’t interested in being part of it?
This reminds me of a recent Onion story: Company More Like Family Whose Members Are Desperate To Join Better Family.
I don’t think saying no is the giant faux pas that the OP is imagining it to be. As long as you have an excuse, it will be taken at face value. Even if you just “Bartleby-the-Scrivener” it, it’ll usually be accepted. The only obstacle it’ll put is that you won’t be socially befriended but it won’t have any professional implications. Being broke is actually one of the milder excuses. I’ve heard:
- I’m a loner. I like to eat alone.
- I play this video game, and I need to be online from 2:30-3:30 for this special event every day.
- I bring my lunch.
- I only eat lunch that I bring because of health/religious/personal reasons
- I don’t eat that cuisine, nor that cuisine, nor that cuisine, nor that cuisine…
- I’m not eating lunch. I don’t eat lunch.
- I would prefer not to.
None of it had any professional ramifications. A bit of personal judgment sometimes, but as long as the overall non-lunch attitude was pleasant enough and the work got done, who really cares?
*The receptionist who plays video games during her very late, very generous lunch “hour” probably deserves a talking to if not fired outright but hey, not my call.
Are we having lunch because we’re friends or because my manager organized it?
Frankly, I think if more people were open about this sort of thing, we’d all be better off. People would start to realize that we don’t all afford everything. They might think a little before they committed other people’s money. And I think people would start spending wiser when they hear other people admit that they “can’t afford.”
But to give your boss and coworkers a break, as a temp they have little idea what you make - your boss knows only what your agency rate is. And if you make $12.50, that’s probably close to $30 an hour. He’s likely thinking you are getting closer to $20 an hour. And if they are a bunch of salaried engineers, its likely its been a while since they’ve had any sort of income insecurity or had to source their own insurance (oh, they are complaining about their share, but their share is a pittance compared to ‘provide your own’)
Pretty much this. There will always in your life be people who invite you to do things that you either can’t afford, or aren’t worth it to you at the cost you’d have to pay.
No one should ever be offended if you simply say “Thank you so much, but I’m afraid I can’t.” If you like the person and want to interact with them socially, you follow up with “How about…”
One of my first summer jobs, I was making I think $7.25 an hour part time at Sears. Two weeks after I started, the manager of the department I was working at was promoted and was moving to another office. Someone in the department organized a collection to buy him a (reasonably nice) briefcase as a present and asked for $20 a person. I simply said “I’m sorry, I can’t afford to contribute”. No one ever brought it up again. They may have thought I was cheap, but fuck 'em. They were asking for me to spend 4 hours of my labor to buy a present for someone who wasn’t close to me and who I’d never see or hear from again.
That said, if you like your coworkers, it’s totally reasonable to decide that a few lunches is a small enough cost to enjoy their company and make your work environment more pleasant (and maybe to get hired on for more work later?)
Ugh, who knew?
We just got a new office manager (no, not Hazle, this is a permanent hire).
I work in the office, well, in a private office off the main office (open plan) floor. She has 7 people working out there who report to her. I do not report to her, they just stuck me where they wanted to. And one other private office is up here, with a person who does not report to her either.
So her shiny newness means she wants to see teamwork, dammit, love and flowers, and good good feelings. I am here 20 years, and just want to work and get the hell out. So she came into my office with a menu, and advised me that “we’re” (who’s we?) going to have monthly team building lunches. O M FUCKING G.
My usual response was that I am dieting. It’s worked forever (perma-diet, doesn’t mean I really lose much 
) Her solution was to bring said menu, so I could pick something that won’t wreck my diet. Shit.
Ah well, I simply said no, thanks, nothing personal. And I am as usual a curmudgeon.
It wasn’t my call. I was just filling in for her.
Management isn’t that special of a skill, in general and for short periods.
I’d rather be short a manager than short a cook any day.
God. That Onion article pretty much describes every private industry place I’ve worked to a tee.
“Our people are our greatest asset. We hire only the best! Our team is an awesomely professional group of hand-picked wonderfulness.”
Until we fail to meet quarterly shareholder expectations for a couple of quarters.
The Bartleby comment was dead on. I feel like him (or at least wish I had his balls, anyway) at some point in every temp assignment. Addressing another question, there is absolutely no chance of being hired permanently. This has been a temp position for 6.5 years. I’m the third to hold this office. They will never make it a permanent position. It’s sort of a company-wide policy. Even two of the chemist are temps. Just a real puzzler as to why they just didn’t ask my predecessor to hang out for 2 more months rather than training and badging me and giving me access to all of their finances. You should see the e-mail that one of the older gentlemen sent to everyone but the birthday boy re: Friday’s lunch. Maybe I’ll post it later. Perfectly exemplifies the way that they (especially the oldest two gentlemen) think. The craziest thing is that I coan basically get everything done that I’m supposed to within about 45 minutes. If they had their shit together, they would have one of the other people who kind of do their own administrative tasks themselves anyway, to split the load. SO much money is being spent just to have me fill in a chair. It’s not even like someone has to cover the phone. I think it rang 3 times all week and two of those calls were from the lady I’ve replaced. Basically my only duties are to scan/e-mail invoices and expense reports over to corporate. And there are only four people who even need expense reports. One does her own and all I have to do is pass it along. The others can’t be arsed to do them themselves, which would take all of five minutes. In the time it takes me to access each of their accounts and reference their credentials and their stupid security questions, they could have them completed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so fortunate to be pulling in the little money that I do, I’m just baffled by how inefficient and expensive this is for them. And it is like this in literally every temp job I’ve had. It takes almost as much work to look busy as it is to actually be busy. Sorry for the ramble and thanks for your comments.
Now I’m thinking of the time where Ross moved into the new building and didn’t want to contribute to the retirement gift for the custodian he didn’t know. 
I hate temp jobs like that - in my case it’s usually because they’re so busy that they can’t spare any time to train me to do any of the things they need to get done. Just take a little time, people, and show me what to do, and I’m off and running and we’ll all be happier!
Your temp jobs remind me of my own. I was well into adulthood before I had the courage to say, “I’m sorry, I just can’t afford to do X. It’s out of my budget.”
I don’t know why saying that is perceived as shameful. Even I felt that way, and that was when I really couldn’t afford it. People think they have some kind of a right to your money.
And the diet thing is another thing. I really don’t want to eat out or go out to eat that often. I watch all the meals I eat at work, so that I can go out with my SO and not worry…that’s one of the trade-offs.